Unable to get Veritas to mount tape in standalone drive

Updated: 21 May 2010 | 6 comments

0 0 Votes

This issue has been solved. See solution.

Hello,

This had been an ongoing battel......I currently have one server connected to a standalone LTO-3 tape drive. I'm doing SQL backups of 3 DB's. It seems that whenever on of my tapes gets full and I try to load a new blank media in, I always have a hard time getting Veritas to "reocgnize" and mount the tape to begin writing to. I've tried creating New Volumes (Ex: A00001-A00010) but when I try to manually start a backup it look for A00011 and says (A00011 complete...requesting next available media Any) and then I cancel the job and try earsing...labeling and after a bunch of tries it mounts the tape....none of the media ID's are consistent whatever ID it takes that what I go with, but as of now...I can't get it to mount the new blank tape.....I have the "overwrite media" options checked off in the Master properties, so that can't be the reason. Any ideas are welcomed...hope this makes sense...:smileyindifferent:

Thanks,

Ray

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Jul

2007

0 Votes 0

Chia Tan Beng

HI Ray,

I'm not sure whether I completely understand you problem. From your posting, it seems like you're encountering problem on backing up to the standalone tape drive and when loading of 2nd tape if backup span across the 1st.

Have you try doing a bplabel on each tape follow by vmphyinv?

(bplabel is to write the media ID to the physical tape and vmphyinv reads the tape header and updates the volume database)

Jul

2007

0 Votes 0

sdw303

Hi Ray,

NetBackup isn't really meant to work with standalone drives, BackupExec is. NetBackup is very good when working with media changers with built in barcode readers.

Your problem is that NetBackup has its own idea about which scratch tape to mount next, usually the one with the lowest number of previous mounts.

One way for you, is to manage which tapes are in the scratch pool yourself, and only ever leave one tape in the scratch pool, and then NetBackup will select just that tape - but - if your backups are running and you don't get another tape moved to the ScratchPool by the time NetBackup needs a new scratch tape, then your backup will fail and effectively be lost, because NetBackup could not find any more media.

Another solution for you is to have pools of media by logical day - and to set NetBackup NOT to return media to the scratch pool. NetBackup is very good at managing expiry, and so, if you design your retention and media rotation well, then you should be able to ensure that media in different pools are always effectively scratch by the time the NetBackup schedules come around again. However, this will mean that you have to have multiple policies - one policy (or set of policies) for Monday that use e.g. the "Data-Mon" volume pool, another policy (or set of policies) that use e.g. the "Data-Tue" volume pool, etc...

Or, the simplest solution is to get a media changer with barcode reader.

HTH,

Regards,

Dave.

Jul

2007

0 Votes 0

Ray Caldwell

Thanks for the responses guys, but I think those suggestions won't help....I didn't realise Netbackup didn't work as well with standalones...Netbackup is the only option we have. Sorry for the convoluted explanation. Basically what is happening is that when I put a blank tape in, its rather difficult to assign it a media ID and I have to try numerous tries to finally get it to work and takes it. I go into the the Volume Pools and create a few volumes (Ex: A00001-A00005) keep in mind this only take one tape its not an multiple drive device. And I'm under the empression that the blank tape will pick on of the created volumes, but it skip right to one that is not created (Ex: A00006) and the backup job just sit and hangs there....then I would cancel that job and try to create another volume (Ex: A00007) but it skips that and looks for A00008. I have been able to get it to work and take an ID until recently. I hope this is more clear.

Thanks~

Jul

2007

0 Votes 0

sdw303

You've done the first part, which is create the volumes, but what I have done in the past when I've messed around with single drives, is to then label new blank media using the bplabel command line tool - so I used to build a stack of scratch tapes ready;

1) Create the volume in the volume database using the GUI.

2) Write the tape header label using the GUI or the "bplabel" command.

3) Physically label the media with a sticker.

Do:

$ bplabel -?

...to see a list of command line switches.

Jul

2007

0 Votes 0

Ray Caldwell

Thanks for the response Dave....I got in touch with tech support and they informed me that what you said was correct about BackupExec is more tailored for standalone drives. They told me what I had to do, was create the volume and then right click on the created volume and select "label" once that is done I have to go into "Device Monitor" and at the bottom will be the request for the new volume and I had to CLICK AND DRAG the pending request to the drive above and then it creates the media ID...once that done it worked....they informed me that its a little more manual process with Netbackup than Exec...so I didn't realsie I have to drage the request up to the drives in the "device monitor" section.....

Thank you guys soo much for your help....I hope this info helps others out.

SOLUTION

Jul

2007

0 Votes 0

sdw303

Top tip. I never knew that either. Thanks Ray.

Unable to get Veritas to mount tape in standalone drive

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