MSL6060, DL380 G4, Netbackup 5.0MP5 and downed drives

[Thomas Olsen_1]

Hi

A while back we bought this system:
1xMSL6060 with 3 LTO2 (LTO 460) drives
1xDL380 G4 server (370596-421)
2xHP Dual Wide Ultra 320 SCSI controllers (268351-B21)
VHDCI to VHDCI cables (341174-B21)
1x FCA2101 FC HBA (245299-b21) used for diskstaging of backups.
Running on Veritas Netbackup 5.0MP5

We connected one drive to each SCSI channel and the library itself to the last one.
It was running fine for a while but then the nightmare started.
We were not able to run almost any backups at all. Just after some minutes of backup, all drives downed. Cables and terminators and SCSI cards were replaced but with the same issues.
We ended up with connecting everything on the internal 6i controller. This worked for a while but now we have the same issues again.
It was not recommended to connect any tape libraries to this controller, so now I am running everything on a Adaptec 29160 controller. This works fine at least for now.

Firmware on our MSL6060 is v4.14 (as recommended by Veritas)

Have anyone seen anything similar to our problems?

Thanks.

/Thomas O

[Kurt Beyers.]

Thomas,

Did you check what LTT had to say when the tapes were down? Could you still see them in the Windows device manager at that time?

best regards,
Kurt

[Marino Meloni_1]

As suggested, LTT should analize the hardware and report informations, this is a good starting point for troubleshooting.
Remenber also that just one application that use drives should run at a time, or you will have reservation conficts, this on a SAN environment with several server, should be applayed to all servers. On a single server scsi attached, you should be sure that RSM is stopped and disabled, be sure you didn't install another backup application in the past, (some services could still be active and keep ownership of the drives), and also be aware about insight agents, that in some circumstances could interfere with backups.

marino

[Thomas Olsen_1]

Hi Kurt / Mario

Thanks for your tips on this problem. Since everything is running fine now on a single Adaptec 29160 controller, I am reluctant to start messing up the system again by installing the "old" HP SCSI cards.
I am going to install a second Adaptec controller as well to try to speed up the backup performance. If I run in to the same problems with those controllers as I did with the HP SCSI controllers, I will definitely follow your advice and check with LTT.

Thanks.

/Thomas O