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Migrated servers to iSCSI SAN, target drives not showing in retrospect


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We just got done migrating a majority of our servers to a Lefthand p4300 iSCSI SAN, and the servers (to be virtualized 2Q `10) are now using the MS iSCSI initiator instead of their local attached disks (save for OS drive). The problem arises when I try to edit the backup scripts, Retrospect does not see those drives.

 

In searching it seems that RS should work as long as the drives show in device manager, which they do. I'd just connect the backup server directly to the SAN; however, I'm concerned with doing that that things like file locking/open files as well as our exchange server wouldn't backup properly that way.

 

What is the accepted way to backup these volumes using retrospect and ensuring that things like open files and exchange logs get properly taken care of?

 

Thanks!

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Make sure they have a drive letter for Retrospect to see them. The volumes must be local NTFS volumes for open file backup to work.

 

The drives are currently connected with the Microsoft iSCSI initiator and have all been assigned drive letters. As far as the system knows, they show in device manager properly and act just like local drives, they just do not show up on the retrospect server as available drives to backup.

 

Although they are obviously located on the SAN itself, the iSCSI initiator connects them in a way they appear local and are of course formatted in NTFS.

 

Is there anything that needs to be done to read 'new' drives in the client or server? (have rebooted most of the clients, maybe reinstalled the client, etc)

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

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Just found what was happening: While normally when new arrays are added the client automatically see them, in this case that did not happen and I had to go to the client properties and specify the drives from there. Don't know if I've just gotten lucky in the past or the steps are different for a SAN, but I thought I'd report in case someone else is running into this.

 

Thanks Robin and Lennart for the help!

 

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