Overwrite protection tab physically on the tape?

Hi AlexMe,

What type of device and what capacity tapes are you using? Ultrium? Dat? SDLT?

When I have seen this problem, it has had to do with BE losing its connection with the remote agent on the machine it is backing up, which causes the end-of-tape marker not to be set correctly.  Is that what is going on?  If the end-of-tape marker is not set on the tape, it cannot be appended to.

Hardware compression enabled? 

Are you using the latest Symantec drivers?

Have you tried manufacturer drivers?

Hi Alex,
    I had this problem in several backup servers... Unfortunately there was no workaround... The only thing that fixed this problem was changing the drive.
   Nevertheless, before buying a new one, please use the HP LTT (Library and tape tools) in order to check the health of the drive and if there were some problems (internal logs of the drive).

Looking forward for your answer,
Regards,

I've got to ask Alex - have you tried a brand new, out of the shrink wrapped box, tape as yet and if so I presume you got exactly the same issue?

Hi Vintaneg and Charlosa,

We replaced this Tape Drive in 08/09 and new tapes were implemented then. I have not tried with new tapes yet.
When using HP StorageWorks Library and Tape Tools no errors were found. We are using the lastest firmware, drivers and no errors on health tests. I can not  believe we have to replace this drive again, but it is possible. Right now we are backing up to disk but I will keep trying to find the solution for this problem.

Thanks,
Alex

Another thing to check would be the System Event logs at the time of the tape reporting full. Sometimes errors will be reported there that do not appear in the tape tools. It is entirely possible that it is not the tape drive that needs replacing, but the SCSI adapter.

Hey Alex,

I posted this on a different thread but I don't know if you say it --

Don't you want to set the append period so you can write more than 1 backupset to the file?  I know I have more than 1 nightly job that needs to go to the same tape, so I have the append period set to 2 days.

I installed BE 2010.   My tape job is 282GB on a LTO-3.   It can do 400GB.   For some strange reason, it shows the tape filled.   I called into support.    It is not your SCSI adapter or the drivers.    It is overhead being added by BE 2010.   I tried Symantec and HP drivers.   If the SCSI card was the issue, it would be showing other errors or backing up very slowly.  I have three tape drives on it.   I have not checked the other backups to see if they have the same issue.   I will check tonight.   It is not the tape drive because 12.5 did not do it.   Only upgrading to 2010 caused the issue.   It is in the software.  

try this solution

- http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/255501.htm
- http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/251466.htm
- http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/309509.htm
- http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/191646.htm

I disabled BE 2010 and setup to run Windows Backup.    It did the same thing.   It ejected the tape with 2GB to finish.  280GB of 282GB.   Same as BE 2010.    I reduced the backup by 4GB.   I want to see if it finishes.   Then, I will go into restore and see if I can figure out what is filling 120GB of tape to get my 400GB on an Ultrium 920 drive.   The overhead is a huge amount of the tape.   I am only backing up various files.   No system state or C: drive files.   No temp files.   The are pictures and movies from vacation trips.   Compression is 1:1.   Could it be doing reverse compression?   Could the software and hardware compression be making the files larger on the tape.   I want to see what the compression ratio is once finished.  

Try look into the specs of your tape drive.  Does it actually support hardware compression?  Is there possibly a problem with the hardware compression method being used?  If you try using software compression then you might get a better ratio (but longer backup windows).