jweisbin Posted April 11, 2012 Report Share Posted April 11, 2012 I have a 9 TB array dedicated to Retro 9.0.1 (Mac Pro, OS X Server 10.6.8) backups as a disk media set. That media set is called "BigBak" and is now approximately 3 TB in size. Now I want to use a "Copy Media Set" script to copy the set to LTO-5 tape for off-site archiving. I've tried this several times already with the same results: after writing around 350 GB to tape Retro stops with a flashing question mark and asks to "choose media". In my experience with normal (not copy) backups, this has always meant that the tape is full and it needs another. But the LTO-5 tape can hold at worst 1.5 TB so is not even close to being full. Furthermore, when I click on the "choose media button", I get a message that "1-BigBak not found, locate or add new member". But the disk media set is mounted, and besides, why would it be asking to find the source, instead of the destination? Obviously I am not understanding something about this. Any help would be appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jweisbin Posted April 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2012 I tried this on a similar machine, except the tape is LTO-4 (approx 800 GB per tape uncompressed), and the source is a file-based media set, not a disk-based media set. The backup completed with no errors, writing 729 GB to one tape. So is there something either about disk-based backups that's different, or is it just a bug? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twickland Posted April 12, 2012 Report Share Posted April 12, 2012 So is there something either about disk-based backups that's different, or is it just a bug? We tried unsuccessfully to get staged backups going with Retro 8.2, doing a Copy Media Set from a disk backup set to LTO-5 tape, and ran into similar incomprehensible error messages. The catalogs for both the source disk media set and the destination tape media set became hosed in the process, and had to be rebuilt. We abandoned the process, hoping that Retro 9 would behave better. I haven't yet made the attempt, but your experience is not encouraging. I'd love to hear from anyone who has been able to successfully copy from a disk media set to a tape media set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jweisbin Posted April 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2012 I was able to, using an LTO-4 and a file media set. But not with LTO-5 using disk-medis set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jweisbin Posted April 13, 2012 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2012 I changed it to a file based media set on an HFS+ volume with 9 TB free. Now I get this message: #Can't add that much data to Backup Set (limited to 1024.0 G) Then it fails and tells me the drive is full, even though the media set file is only 900 GB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twickland Posted April 13, 2012 Report Share Posted April 13, 2012 I changed it to a file based media set on an HFS+ volume with 9 TB free. Now I get this message: #Can't add that much data to Backup Set (limited to 1024.0 G) File media sets and their predecessors, file backup sets, have long been limited to 1 TB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jweisbin Posted April 13, 2012 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2012 This is what the maul says: File Media Sets combine the Catalog file and the backed-up data into a single file stored on a volume. They can be saved anywhere a Disk Media Set can be saved, but they are limited by the size of the volume on which it is stored, and also the maximum file size of the file system (FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, etc.). Backups in a File Media Set cannot span across media. File Media Sets are useful for small jobs where every- thing (the Catalog and the backed up data) is self-contained in a single file, but in most cases, you should use Disk Media Sets. So, just play BS? (Maximum file size for HFS+ is 8 exabytes) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twickland Posted April 13, 2012 Report Share Posted April 13, 2012 This is what the maul says: File Media Sets combine the Catalog file and the backed-up data into a single file stored on a volume. They can be saved anywhere a Disk Media Set can be saved, but they are limited by the size of the volume on which it is stored, and also the maximum file size of the file system (FAT32, NTFS, HFS+, etc.). Backups in a File Media Set cannot span across media. File Media Sets are useful for small jobs where every- thing (the Catalog and the backed up data) is self-contained in a single file, but in most cases, you should use Disk Media Sets. So, just play BS? (Maximum file size for HFS+ is 8 exabytes) That's very interesting. Note that the error message you saw refers to a "backup set;" that terminology ended with Retro 6.1. So, is the above text aspirational, kinda like the semi-support for optical media in Retro 8/9 that may become more "real" in the future? Or is the current limitation a mistake; merely some inadvertent holdover from Retro 6? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jweisbin Posted June 7, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2012 I tested again on version 9.0.2, it appears that this has now been fixed. I was able to copy a 6 TB media set to four LTO-5 tapes, getting about 1.5 TB per tape (mostly audio and video files, so very little compression in play) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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