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Backup failure & system freezes using Retrospect 6.1.138 with WD My Book Premium II on Mac OS X 10


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Hi All,

 

The problem is that the drive reports an error 206 and an error -36 during the backup. After this problem occurs, Retrospect stops responding. Eventually, the entire computer stops responding correctly until I power down the backup drive (the Western Digital “My Book Premium Edition II”). After I power down the drive, the system performance returns to normal.

 

*The Restropect version is 6.1.138 using the “Retrospect 6.1 Driver Update”

 

*Our Mac OS X version is 10.4.11 on an Intel Platform with 2 x 2GHz Dual Core Xeon with 1GB 667MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM.

 

*We are attempting to backup to a Western Digital “My Book Premium Edition II” 2 Terabyte Drive using the Firewire 800 port. We are backing up a Mac xRaid which is connected via FiberChannel.

 

*The WD My Book Premium Edition II drive is formatted Apple Extended Journaled (case sensitive file system).

 

*The Retrospect backup sets are set to use “File” (not removable). I have 2 backup sets, one for each week.

 

I have already attempted the following recommendations after reading the “knowledgebase” and other forums (including Western Digital’s formus).

 

*Thinking there might be a problem with the drive, I tried another Western Digital “My Book Premium Edition II” drive. The same problem occurred.

 

*I installed the WD Button Manager, since some people reported the drives sleeping and not properly waking up

 

*I made sure to select “Do not backup ACL’s on Intel machines” in the Retrospect software (Although your site says this problem effects Mac OS X 10.4.8 and 10.4.9, I found the same problem in our version, 10.4.11)

 

*I tried several different partitioning schemes, including 2x1TB partitions and 1X2TB partition.

 

Any suggestions or solutions would be very helpful and appreciated. Thanks!

grin.gif

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Our company is evaluating your software for our backup needs. However, we have been having very many problems with it. I am hoping that you will be able to help us.

...

Any suggestions or solutions would be very helpful and appreciated. Thanks!

 


You are aware that this is a user-to-user support forum, and is not official EMC support, aren't you?

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> The Restropect version is 6.1.138 using the “Retrospect 6.1 Driver Update”

 

- What version of the RDU? That information is written to the log each time Retrospect launches.

 

> *Thinking there might be a problem with the drive, I tried another Western Digital “My Book

> Premium Edition II” drive. The same problem occurred.

 

- Did you use the same power supply?

- What happens when you try with a different make of external drive?

 

> *I installed the WD Button Manager, since some people reported the drives sleeping and

> not properly waking up

 

You installed a third party kext onto an XServe running OS X Server?

 

If you've got a simple FireWire external hard drive that requires a system level kernel extension for proper operation, I'd suggest that you've made a bad choice in hardware.

 

Is there a slot free in the XServe for an eSATA card?

 

> We are attempting to backup to a Western Digital “My Book Premium Edition II” 2 Terabyte Drive...

 

The 2 terabytes are achieved by striping two 1 TB drives into a RAID. Problem is, two drives have twice the likelihood of suffering a mechanical failure then one drive has. And if one drive fails, you loose all the contents stored on both drives. (compare that to a twin engine plane, which also has twice the likelihood of suffering an engine failure, except the plane is designed to allow for operation and safe landing with the remaining single engine)

 

So you've got two issues; the first is that the backup scenario you're attempting does not provide the most fault tolerant data protection that it could/should. The second is that you've got a hardware problem of some sort, either the FW bus in the XServe, the cable you're using, or the make/model of the device you've selected to use.

 

 

Dave

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Quote:

> The Restropect version is 6.1.138 using the “Retrospect 6.1 Driver Update”

 

- What version of the RDU? That information is written to the log each time Retrospect launches.

 


 

-Retrospect Driver Update, version 6.1.13.101

 

Quote:

> *Thinking there might be a problem with the drive, I tried another Western Digital “My Book

> Premium Edition II” drive. The same problem occurred.

 

- Did you use the same power supply?

- What happens when you try with a different make of external drive?

 


 

-No, I used two totally different power supplies; the ones that came with the drives.

-I don't have an alternative at the moment.

 

Quote:

> *I installed the WD Button Manager, since some people reported the drives sleeping and

> not properly waking up

 

You installed a third party kext onto an XServe running OS X Server?

 


 

-Yes, that is what Western Digital recommended: Western Digital Support

 

Quote:

If you've got a simple FireWire external hard drive that requires a system level kernel extension for proper operation, I'd suggest that you've made a bad choice in hardware.

 


 

-I didn't get to choose the hardware.

 

Quote:

Is there a slot free in the XServe for an eSATA card?

 


 

-Yes, I believe only slot 2 is in use by our Fiber Channel card.

 

Quote:

> We are attempting to backup to a Western Digital “My Book Premium Edition II” 2 Terabyte Drive...

 

The 2 terabytes are achieved by striping two 1 TB drives into a RAID. Problem is, two drives have twice the likelihood of suffering a mechanical failure then one drive has. And if one drive fails, you loose all the contents stored on both drives. (compare that to a twin engine plane, which also has twice the likelihood of suffering an engine failure, except the plane is designed to allow for operation and safe landing with the remaining single engine)

 


 

-Yes, I totally understand and agree that this is not the ideal way to do backups; however, this is what I was presented with and I'm trying to make it work.

 

Quote:

So you've got two issues; the first is that the backup scenario you're attempting does not provide the most fault tolerant data protection that it could/should. The second is that you've got a hardware problem of some sort, either the FW bus in the XServe, the cable you're using, or the make/model of the device you've selected to use.

 

Dave

 


 

-Both drives came with their own firewire 800/ firewire 400 / USB cables and power adapter.

 

If the problem is with these external drives, then I have the opportunity to propose a better solution.

Thank you very much for helping me narrow down the possible cause of this problem and your suggestions. smile.gif

 

--Tim

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  • 5 years later...

I have the same problem with my WD MyBook, 500GB, USB 2/Firewire/eSata; when I use the eSata connector. The problem seems to occur when the backup is verifying the files. I believe the issue is with the WD drive firmware as I read a post on another site where MS Backup did the same thing. I also tried changing the HD sleep interval in the Power Profile of Windows with no success. I am now trying a utility called KeepAliveHD that writes a small file to the HD periodically. It seems to be working. A nice feature is the utility can do this for multiple HDs

 

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