SDLT + Arcserv........................Stinks?

[anawrocki]

Has anyone out there got ANY flavor of SDLT to work well with AS2000? I have been fighting it here for a long time and I am about ready to try switching to Backup Exec. I am running all of the latest and greatest firmware, service packs, patches, etc.

I paid CA for an incident and they were absolutley no help.

 

[comtec17]

I would bet you that anyone here would agree with me when I say Arcserve sucks

 

[NickFerrar]

I wish a couple of years back we'd bought something other than ARCserve...

As for SDLT, we only have an SDLT drive on a big UNIX system (not running ARCserve) the tape drive gets replaced about every 2-3 months due to failures.

 

[TheLad]

What issues are you getting? -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[SSWNET]

We have been using Arcserve 2000 for about 8 months successfully. We are using a Quantum SuperDLT1, and have the latest patches. What kind of problems are you experiencing?

 

[anawrocki]

I have used AS on standard DLT for many years and have been about 90 percent happy with it as long as I did not need help from CA.

I have 3 110/220s and one 160/320. They are spread across 3 different servers. I see about 1 in 10 new tapes and about 4 in 10 recycled tapes fail fail in the middle of a backup. It does not matter what drive or server. Once the backup is complete a restore is never a problem.

My current solution is to send the failed tapes back to quantum for new ones about once a month and that is getting old.

I have learned I can minimize failures with recycled media (but not totaly eliminate them) by doing a full erase. When the erase fails I know I have a bad tape.

I have tried the Compaq TSMC utility to erase tapes that have failed and maybe 1 in 3 of those will be re-usable.

I have tried several different types of SCSI cards.

We have a signigant investment in SDLT and I need to find a way to make it work.

Any thougts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[pdrp]

Same issue with AS2000 and SDLT110. At first I thought it was the tapes, but it was happening so frequently I figured something else is wrong. I've gotten around the symptom by cleaning the drive pretty frequently (about every other backup). Has seemed to work so far, but I think something definitley messed up in the way AS talks to the drive. And I'm not really sure how all that cleaning will effect the drive's lifespan.

 

[anawrocki]

I may have the answer, but I am holding my breath, It seams by turning of the Compaq SCSI agent we may have solved the issue. So far, so good.

 

[SSWNET]

Check your firmware version. That would definitely cause issues.

Document Number: EX020830_CW01
Summary: FIRMWARE UPGRADE RECOMMENDED: StorageWorks SDLT 110/220 GB Tape Drive (Firmware V35/2323) Tape Media May Fail

http://www3.compaq.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?dt=3&source=EX020830_CW01.xml