Tips for dual tape drive backups?

[cbrunet17]

We recently had one of our tape drives go down for our exchange server. Rather then wait for HP to fix it, we purchased a new one, as it was imperitive that backups continue. HP has finally gotten around to replacing out old Tape Drive, so we now have 2 tape drives for our server. What I'm wondering is, what is the most efficient way that I can use both drives? I'm fairly unfamiliar with Veritas Backup Exec, so please bare with me. We are running version 9.1 on Windows Server 2003 Standard.

Thanks

P.S.: I did do a quick search through the forums and didn't see much, so if there is a thread dealing with such a subject, please feel free to simply point me in the right direction.

 

[birky]

If you daisy chain them then you can use both drives

PinnacleData Systems (UK)

 

[cbrunet17]

Daisy chain them how? We have them already setup on the server, and their both being detected in Veritas, Im just not sure what we can do with them. Can we, for example, use both drives at the same time? Two different backups at once? We also find that the backups take more then oen tape, could we set it up somehow to use the second drive as the second media source when the first is full?

 

[Zelandakh]

If you set up 2 jobs as Tuesday Drive 1 and Tuesday Drive 2, running at the same time, specifying the specific drive in the job, you can run both at the same time.

Now that's all well and good but you can only do it nicely if you don't present yourself with a bottleneck on the chain.

 

[gozar]

Create a device pool from the device window and then add both drives to the pool. Then in your job properties point them to the pool.

 

[cbrunet17]

So when the first drive becomes full, it will automatically switch the rest of the job to the other tape drive? Without user input?

 

[gozar]

No probably not - you could take your big backup job and break it into smaller jobs - say by the share or drive. I do that a lot so I can utilize 2 drives on one server backup.

 

[cbrunet17]

Thats what we tried yesterday, seemed to work. Thanks everyone.