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Re: I/O errors to Ultrium 1840

 
PhilipHarrison
New Member

I/O errors to Ultrium 1840

Hi guys,

I'm getting I/O (1117) errors writing to a HP Ultrium 1840 LTO4 drive using MS Data Protection Manager. I've run all the LTT tests which passed, but I'm still seeing these I/O errors so am not sure where to go from here as it is preventing us doing tape backups properly. I changed the SCSI cable, no improvement. Also tried new tapes, no improvement. The I/O errors are happening at random places on the tapes. Firmware is up-to-date and driver is the latest avaialble for Windows 2008 x64 from the HP site.

For reference, here is the thread I have on-going on the MS forums - http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/dpmtapebackuprecovery/thread/e718e8e6-c0d6-496e-9407-ea1ccf51bb98?prof=required


Any tests I should try would be much appreciated! As discussed on that MS thread, this drive was actually working fine with BackupExec until the day I rebuilt the server and moved to DPM.

Thanks!
4 REPLIES 4
Marino Meloni_1
Honored Contributor

Re: I/O errors to Ultrium 1840

You can start running LTT, run some tests, and collect a support ticket, you can attach it here for a review
PhilipHarrison
New Member

Re: I/O errors to Ultrium 1840

Thanks for the reply.

I've run all test and attached the Support report. Note from that Microsoft thread it seems like writing to the drive in one way (writeforspanning) is causing issues while another way (writetillend) is not. I'm not sure if this is down to how DPM is handling errors or what.

Is there anyway we can turn on more debugging from the drive while running a DPM backup? I'm surprised the drive isn't logging events in the Windows Event Logs or HP Integrated System Logs when DPM is having I/O errors?

Thanks,
Philip
Marino Meloni_1
Honored Contributor

Re: I/O errors to Ultrium 1840

HI
I reviewed the sticket, and couldn't find any Hardware issue reported in the logs
I can see that several EOT (end of Tape) are reported, but this is a standard sense code on a particular condition, so the backup application should be able to deal with it.
Can you confirm that you see that error when the first tape is full and you load the second one? or do you get the error at the end of the fist one?
Is your backup application aware about the second cartridges loaded? does it manage it as a second volume? As this is not tape library, you should do the change manually, do you get clear instruction from your backup application when you should remove the first full tape and insert a second empty one?
What you indicated as an I/O error do not looks like a communication issue comming from the drive, but it may be the backup aplication is loosing contact at the moment the tape is full, probably because he is not able to manage the EOT message? did you asked that to your vendor? Can that software use spanning, unfortuantely I do not know that product, and cannot go further.
PhilipHarrison
New Member

Re: I/O errors to Ultrium 1840

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. MS reckon this is a drive issue so I have logged a call with HP this morning. However if you have any further thoughts it might speed up the process.

In answer to your questions: No the error will happen in the middle of writing to the tape, it never reaches the end. Sometimes it gets to 50Gb into the tape, sometimes 300+Gb. DPM is able to handle tape spanning, EOT etc. however this is not an EOT error, it's a 1117 I/O error.