Use Tape drive on remote server?

[chifu]

Anyone know if Backup Exec v8.6 can use a tape drive on another server. We are running out of space on one tape and another server has a second tape drive. Can BE use this second drive?

Is the base BE software enough for this or do we need to buy another module?

 

[Scanner]

See the following link on the Veritas support site for the short answer:

http://news.support.veritas.com/dne...backupexec.windowsnt.english&item=48485&utag=

Now for my $.02 worth...

Is there a reason that you can't start using differential or incremental backups in your rotation? It takes only a few more minutes to add that functionality to your backup strategy and it saves a bunch of headaches about backups that "roll-over" to a second tape. The second option is to invest in a larger drive or an autoloader (if ya got the cash).

Keep us posted...

 

[chifu]

Thanks.

Looks like the second tape drive can not be used. Will have to look at my options. Have not used differential or incremental because always been able to store everything onto to one tape and prefer only requiring one tape to do a complete restore and also makes it easier to restore individual files.

A bigger drive would be nice or might move the second drive onto the BE server, might even go for differential or incremental backups. Might even just clean out the file server and archive some files to CD for now. Will see.

 

[mkenny]

You can only backup to tape drive connected directly to the media or backup server. Veritas way of getting additional license $$. You can do what I did and place the backup exec on server with internal dds4 tape drive with an attached scsi autoloader tape drive. Its nice to be able to make little tapes of certain computers or drives without wasting the space of a DLT tape.

 

[Marverick]

If you are looking to manage multiple BE backup(tape)servers. Veritas has a nice complementry product for managing these media servers. The product is called Network Storage Executive. If you bought a boxed copy of BE 8.6, there should be some additional information on it. I would recommend checking it out.

m