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Re: MSL4048 and RSM

 
jacksbox
Advisor

MSL4048 and RSM

Hello,

Our backup software uses Windows RSM to write to tapes.
We've got an MSL4048 with 2 LTO-3 drives inside.
I've installed the most recent drivers and firmware for the tape drives and library.
Every week, before tape backups are scheduled to run, I 'Free' all tapes in RSM (to wipe them of previous data).

When we start a single tape job, there are no issues.

If we attempt to start a second tape job in parallel(to effectively use both drives) RSM tries to 'Free' the tape being loaded in to the second drive.
This is unneeded because the tape is already free.

Ultimately, the 'Free' operation fails and the library enters a weird state where nothing is very responsive until the first backup job completes.

Can anyone offer any insight?
7 REPLIES 7
Wickedsunny
Valued Contributor

Re: MSL4048 and RSM

RSM is bad to be used as a backup service for Tape Libraries. What is the backup sofware being used??

How is the library connected to the Host.. Via SAN or Direct Attached.. If it is SAN then ensure that all the other hosts have the RSM turned off apart from the backup host.

Regards,
Sunny
jacksbox
Advisor

Re: MSL4048 and RSM

Thanks for the insight Wickedsunny.

It didn't take me long to come to same conclusion you did - RSM is not the best tape interface out there.
We are using a backup software called EVault.

It is primarily a disk-to-disk backup solution. The tapes are used to back up the storage array (extra protection).
Unfortunately we're stuck with our situation, since we can't leave the storage array as a single point of failure for the backups and EVault only has one method of backing up the array (tape via RSM).

The tape library is connected directly to the backup server via SAS, on its own controller.

Any hints/suggestions?
Steven Clementi
Honored Contributor

Re: MSL4048 and RSM

I know it is probably not an answer you are looking for... but you probably should look into some different backup software. The various products available usually can do disk to disk as well as disk to tape.

You probably don't need to go with the expensive "enterprise" version either. (I.E. Get Backup Exec instead of Netbackup or DP Express instead of DataProtector)


Steven
Steven Clementi
HP Master ASE, Storage, Servers, and Clustering
MCSE (NT 4.0, W2K, W2K3)
VCP (ESX2, Vi3, vSphere4, vSphere5, vSphere 6.x)
RHCE
NPP3 (Nutanix Platform Professional)
jacksbox
Advisor

Re: MSL4048 and RSM

While it would be nice to use a backup solution that is industry-standard, this won't be an option for us.
We have a global standard of using EVault at the moment.

Anyone have ideas about getting the MSL4048 working with concurrent drives in RSM?
jacksbox
Advisor

Re: MSL4048 and RSM

I got a response from my backup software's support personnel; they believe that the RSM API is having trouble seeing the second tape through the library.

Does anyone have any tips for working around this in RSM?

Thanks for your time.
el meleh Souhail
New Member

Re: MSL4048 and RSM

Hello,
could you plz verify in regedit..HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\hplto...if you have the key which the name is AutoRun...if yes you must to have the number 0 Hexadecimale
if not add a new Dword Key
i think your problem is about TUR and not RSM

jacksbox
Advisor

Re: MSL4048 and RSM

Well, I solved the problem. Though I can't explain what possibly could have caused it.

I had just recently upgraded my drives' f/w to C24W, and they had been running fine for about 2 months.
Just for fun, I re-flashed that same f/w (there has not been a newer release yet) to each drive yesterday, and now everything is working well.

I can write concurrently to both drives from HP L&TT and from RSM.