backup Data is taking more than double space on Backup tape

[yasserraouf]

Good Morning Sir,

I've got an

HP StorageWorks 1/8 G2 Tape Autoloader Ultrium 448 - tape autoloader with Serial Number: MXA73200HP

supporting and using LTO2 tapes 200 GB.

and my problem is that Backuped Data is taken double space on the tape ( specialy office documents and picture files) and after I made an LTO drive assessment test, it failed. and it says at the end of the report that the drive may need to be replaced.

attached is the support ticket.

thank You in advance.

[thomasr]

I'm afraid that this is one of the symptoms of a worn-out tape drive.   As the head deteriorates, the chance that a block it writes is bad goes up.  When a block is written with errors, it is re-written using the next area on the tape -- so lots of errors means lots of wasted tape.

If you've used a cleaning tape without success, I think that you're left with replacing the drive.

[yasserraouf]

Thank You Mr Thomasr for your quik reply.

really would be shoking if if I will have to replace the autoloader. but maybe there ia a way to clean the head other than HP cleaning tape or maybe the head itself could be replaced???

[thomasr]

The tape drive on your autoloader is easily removable, and that's all you need to replace.   If you currently have an LTO-2 drive, you can upgrade to an LTO-3 drive and still read and write your old tapes, with double the capacity and as much as 2.6x faster speed.  

Or, you can upgrade to LTO-4 for 4x the capacity and perhaps 4x the speed (assuming you can get data to the drive fast enough).   LTO-4 can read LTO-2 tapes, but not write to them.   LTO-4 does have built-in encryption, though, which is important to many people now -- the data is encrypted with no loss of compression or performance.

I don't believe that HP supports end-user tape head replacement.