Alternatives to TapeWare??

[CA1057263]

I asked earlier about getting our HP SureStore DAT 24 drive set up. In case anyone's wondering, the hardware part went fine. :-)

Now the software is giving me fits. The drive came with Yosemite TapeWare, and what I'm finding is that the software is really snippy about backing up files on mapped network drives. However, that is the very thing I need to do!! Can anyone suggest products other than TapeWare that would work??

Some background info ...

OS (at the computer running this backup): XP Pro.

Data to be backed up: User data files ONLY (no system or registry information) on *two* Windows 2000 servers.

One of the servers has an internal tape drive, but it's already running at capacity. Hence, our need to get a second drive going and do backups of network mapped drives.

The user account I'll be using to administer this backup *does* have administrative access to both servers, and full-control persmissions for the directory trees that need to be covered.

As always, any info would be appreciated. Thank you!!

[Lewis Finch]

Hi Geoff,

The tapeware software that came with the drive was only designed to back up a single server or workstation. You can purchase an add-on package that allows network backup by contacting Tapeware. as an HP customer you will get a reduced price for it. I believe around $150.00

[Peter Porz]

Hi,
I tried Tapeware too but it didn't work really good. So I decided to test ArcserveIT, which is really better. The Testversion can be downloaded at www.ca.com (Computer Associates).
The second possibility is using Veritas BackupExec. It's not bad at all, but I prefer Arcserve.

Peter Porz
LION Electronics Int.

[CA1057263]

Lewis,

What came bundled with the drive was TapeWare XE 6.3, and it never said anything about only working on a *single* machine. And based on what's happened so far, I don't think that's the case. When I've had it running, I'm trying to back up files on two different servers, and it's been getting maybe 25% of the selected files. However, it IS getting at least some files from both servers.

What happens is it keeps returning "Error 209 - File is Busy" on files that I know darn well aren't in use when the backup job is running (at 9 pm, well after we're closed). And please, don't get me started on trying an OFM system -- I downloaded the test version from St. Bernard Software, installed it on one of the servers, and what happens is instead of getting maybe a quarter of the selected files, the job doesn't run at all.

At this point, I've pretty much had it with TapeWare, and I'm not spending a dime on any of their stuff without a reasonable expectation that it's going to work. It HAS been worth every penny we paid for it, though ... considering it came for free with the drive. :-P

[CA1057263]

Peter,

I'll take a look for ArcServe -- thanks for the idea!!

Our already-existing backup is using Veritas Backup Exec, and it's been performing flawlessly. My only beef about it is that it'll only back up the local hard drive. And like I said, it is running at capacity ... some of the data files I want to back up are on that hard drive, the present setup won't handle any more.

But it is worth checking to see if Veritas has a version that'll handle networked (mapped) drives. Thanks again.

[Lewis Finch]

Hi Geoff,

From this link:
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/datdrives/index.html

A single-server copy of TapeWare XE, an easy-to-use backup and disaster recovery package for small businesses

keyword= single server

[CA1057263]

Lewis,

Thanks, and I did try something different last night. To check on whether backing up files on more than one server was an issue, I took one of the servers out of the backup job, and just left it to run on the one that has OFM installed. It didn't make any difference, though: The backup is still getting fewer than half of the selected files and returning "Error 209 - File is Busy" on the rest.

The read I'm getting from TapeWare's tech support folks is that they never meant their product to be used on mapped network drives, which would explain why the software is getting its knickers in a knot over what I'm trying to do. Unfortunately, with our current setup, I'm pretty much locked into using mapped drives for this particular backup, so I'm checking into other solutions.

[CA1057263]

Just a quick note for Peter ...

I downloaded the trial version of ARCserve and tried it on one of the servers I need to back up. It ran without a hitch. Tonight I'm going to add the second server to the job and see how it goes.

The ARCserve user interface isn't quite as intuitive (IMO) as TapeWare's, but boy, if the software works out, that's only a small drawback!!

Do you happen to know off the top of your head how much the regular version costs? Thank you ...

[Peter Porz]

Well, I think it costs about 400-500 $ plus some agents if you need them. But there's no quarantee on this price. Ask your Software-Dealer, he will know for sure.

[Peter Kaufman]

Regarding Arcserve, I have been using it for 4 years. It works okay, but the support is terrible. You even have to pay for access to their Knowledge Base. The licensing mechanism for CA products is a royal pain in the butt.

Last thing, be very, very sure you know what you are buying. The description of their products and features at that time was very misleading. For example, you can only back up one server with the basic package.

I would not buy any CA product again.

Peter

[CA1057263]

Just an update as to how we finally solved the problem ...

For starters, we gave up on TapeWare right away. :-)

The evaluation version of BrightStor ArcServe worked OK. But when we started shopping around for price quotes for the full-blown version, we got figures ranging from $500 to $1100. This was way more than we were willing to spend, so I went looking again and downloaded the trial version of Stomp BackUp MyPC (a Veritas product), which doesn't have a problem with backing up network shares. In a nutshell, if you can see it, you can back it up. It worked without a hitch during the 30-day trial period, and it only cost about $70 to upgrade to the full-blown version, so it was an easy buying decision.

Stomp doesn't have all of the bells and whistles and security features of the other products we looked at, but it's easy to work with and it's doing exactly what we need it to do: back up what it's told to and not sweat the security / permissions issues. That does mean that you have to have your security / permissions ducks in a row from the domain perspective, but we're OK with that.

Anyway ... just posting how we resolved this. I thought the folks who responded to my question might be curious about the outcome, even after all this time. :-)

[Kusuma]

Hi Geoff,

Glad that you resolved your problem and thanks for your update on the same.

Keep foruming.

Best Regards,
Kusuma