Media Full Error

[Paul Norehad]

Hi,

We are experiencing media full errors using Arcserve 6.6 EE for Netware on a surestore 40e. The total KB written to tape does not exceed 18 GB. Any ideas why this is happening?

[Eric de Lange_2]

Paul,

Check if hardware compression is disabled in the software. Also check the performance of the tapedrive. Slow performance means loss of capacity on tape.

Other options are a dirty drive or worn tape but I suppose you cleaned the drive and tried a new tape, right ?

-cal.

[Paul Norehad]

Hardware compression is enabled, the tape drive is brand new, I cleaned it, tapes are new but being reused. I haven't tried a brand new tape to see if that makes a difference. I did try to do a full erase before the backup, but it sucked up all the server resources and essentially shut down the network, so that is not an option at this point.

[Eric de Lange_2]

Paul,

While you're at it, try a backup with hardware compression diabled and see how much data fit's on a tape then. If there is a difference, it might well be that the nature of your data is such that it is hard to compress.

Also, what data are you backing up ? I know you are probably backing up the C drive but what does the remainder of the data consist of ? Install files (cabs, zips) video's and music usually are compressed on disk allready making it hard for the compression chip to add value. Disabling the HW compression will show that more data will fit on a tape if this is indeed the case.

Good luck,

-Cal.

[Paul Norehad]

Ok. I will try that. The bulk of the files that we back up are .dwg, .pdf, and .doc.

[Eddie Hager]

Paul,

I was wondering if you have solved the problem with the backup. I'm having the same problem with the backup and we have the same configuration.