Another compression Q on storageworks DAT72 ntbackup

[SAM SCOTT]

Yeah, we use ntbackup because of the script we've got running on a number of our clients' servers. It's weird that it works fine on my server here at work (same tape drive, same driver, same OS, same ntbackup.exe).

Hard to fix when you can't recreate the problem in the lab...

[Alan Mason]

Interesting that this has been running for almost 2 years! At the time of my last post in April 2008 (before I gave up and replaced the drive with a higher capacity DAT 160 unit which does compress correctly), I had found that the compression failed only with the DAT 72 and this started when I upgraded the server to Windows 2003 (though this may have been coincidental as the volume to be backed up may just have increased significantly) and that it failed to compress regardless of which backup software you used. I tested with NTBACKUP, Tapware and HP Data Protector Express Single Server (which is realy Yosemite Backup). Compression via HP L&TT always worked.

[interthingy]

I know this isan old post but I am so annoyed I just had to put my 2 cents in.

I have just taken over a site which is using HP Server, HP Dat72 SCSI running on Win2003 SBS sp2. And yes I have the compression problem.

From what I have been reading here and in other forums it appears that neither HP not Microsoft know what the problem is.

Has this been resolved yet?

I have seen a number of possible solutions which seem to fix it for 1 or 2 backups but it then goes back into the same cycle.
Test compression works great actual backup compression does not get applied.

This tells me that the way the HP Software is communication/configuring the drive is different than how the backup software is interacting with the drive. I may be through the same drivers but the difference has to be somewhere.

I currently look after around 20 installations thankfully only 1 of them uses an HP Dat72. I have been looking at this over the last two weeks and have come to the conclusion there is not and never will be a definitive answer as to why or a viable solution either from HP or Microsoft.

I assume HP does not care because they have moved on with the Dat160 but this leave little room for any faith that well documented issues with HP Storage devices will get addressed. This is very disappointing since in my mind a backup solution is the 1 most important piece when managing computer systems. Everything else can go out the window but without a reliable backup you are screwed.

There must 1000's of installations using this drive on win2003, what is expected, we will all go out and buy a Dat160, I think not!