DAT 36/72 multi-tape backup

[Jeff Haas]

Hi,

I have several questions/problems with my 3 HP Storageworks 36/72 GB DAT tape drives:

1. Tapeware will not accept the 3rd tape in a multi-tape backup. Even giving it all blank tapes it rejects every attempt to supply a "Month Set 1:3" tape. I am presently unable to back up the system!

2. Can these drives be used with the backup utility that comes with Window's Server 2003? If so, how do I get Window's to recognize it?

3. Is there any alternative to Tapeware?? It really sucks and there seems to be no support.

4. I have one drive that went bad, is it worth sending in for repair? If so how?

Thanks,
Jeff

[thomasr]

1. I'm a bit confused by the question; are you saying that you start a backup and it fills tapes one and two, then balks at accepting the third tape for writing?
I don't know what version of Tapeware you're on; I would suggest you make sure you've got all the updates for your particular version. My only suggestion above that is to explicitly format the tapes before trying to use them. I believe that Tapeware normally doesn't need to format, but it's just possible...

2) They should work with NTBackup, which I believe was removed from Server 2003. I have heard that some people have copied it over from, say, Server2000, and it works.

3) There are many alternatives to Tapeware, but probably few or no free ones. I do not know of any free alternatives, other than NTbackup (and note, NTBackup does not work with libraries or autoloaders, just stand-alone drives).

4) I'm guessing you've had those drives for a while and they're out of warranty. If so, it might cost to repair might be more than the drive is worth; you can probably get a new or refurb one fairly inexpensively; in fact, an Ultrium 232 drive would be a good choice for greater capacity and performance (100GB native, 16MB/second performance) than DAT72.

[Jeff Haas]

I am a bit confused about the 3 tape problem too. I had been trying to get a month end backup for almost a week now. I have tried giving it the tapes it asked for. I have tried formatting them first with the media label it asked for. I have tried quick erasing them so they have no label. In the last attempt, it asked for "Month Set 2" which seemed to work, then "Month Set 1:1" which seemed to work, then "Month Set 1:3" and no matter what I gave it for this third tape, it would just spit it out and ask again. So last night I gave up, aborted that backup and just told it to run the backup and gave it an erased tape. This morning, the log says it ran a full backup sucessfully, all on ONE tape and that tape is labelled "Month Set 1:5". Well I am happy that I seem to have finally gotten a backup but very confused and not confident.

Thanks for the info on NTBackup, I will see if I can dig that up somewhere. I had read somewhere that Tapeware was the only software that worked with this drive. The Backup utility that comes with Server 2003 wants the Removable Storage service running, and that won't run without a "library" attached, and the drive is not recognized as a library, so I am lost there.

And also thanks for the recommendation on the new drive.

Jeff