Does Retrospect Support Multiple Members From The Same Nas?

[ferthalangur]

Is anybody successfully using multiple volumes from the same NAS as Members

of the same Disk Media Set? I'm not sure whether this is a bug, or by design.

 

I have a Buffalo 8 Tb NAS that I am mounting via AFP to Retrospect. The NAS

itself is configured as JBOD - 4 2Tb disks, shared with volume names:

backup_5, backup_6, backup_7, and backup_8 .

 

I create a new disk Server Set, named Server Set C, and I add a member, go

into Add Share - afp://10.0.1.43/backup_5, username and password, the share

gets mounted on the Retrospect server, and when I click on Add it gets added

to the Server Set.

 

I then try to add a second member, go into Add Share - afp://10.0.1.43/backup_6,

username and password, the share gets mounted on the Retrospect server, but when

I try to Add it I get the message: "This disk is already a member of this media set"

 

I can use all those shares in other Server Sets, but I can't use two shares from

the same IP address, even though they are uniquely shared resources. It seems to

me that I should be able to use multiple shares from the same NAS as members of

the same Server Set.

[f30e6e60-a263-4d69-8f60-c92703669308]

It will help us to understand exactly what you are seeing if you fine tune your language to match Retrospect's terminology.

 

"I create a new disk Server Set"

 

should read

 

I create a new Disk Media Set

 

"I add a member, go into Add Share - afp://10.0.1.43/backup_5, username and password, the share gets mounted on the Retrospect server"

 

- So before this point "backup_5" was not already present in the Sources list?

- So you click "Add Share..." from the drop-down sheet to display a smaller drop-down sheet. There you enter the credentials, click "Add," and the smaller drop-down sheet slides up to reveal "backup_5" in the list.

- You select "backup_5" from the list and click "Add" in this larger drop-down sheet, which then slides up to again reveal the Media Set window.

- And in the Members tab you see the correct path on the Engine host machine as /Volumes/backup_5/

 

Yes?

 

- Then you repeat the same steps, starting by clicking on the "+" icon in the Members tab of the Media Sets window?

- And from the same drop down sheet you click "Add Share..." and from the same mini drop-down sheet you specify a _different_ path (which just happens to start at the same IP address) and authenticate?

- And it is at that point you get the error?

 

 

I can use all those shares in other Server Sets, but I can't use two shares from

the same IP address

 

What does this mean? You are using volumes on this NAS in different, unrelated Media Sets? But in none of those Media Sets have you attempted to add an additional Member from the same hosting NAS?

 

 

If you have successfully used all of the NAS shares as storage for Members of different Media Sets, then all four share points would be present in the Sources window. Are they?

 

And looking individually at each of the share points in the Sources list, does the "Path" field in the Summary tab show the paths you expect?

 

Note that if all four share points are already present in the Sources list, you would not need to click the "Add Share..." from the drop down sheet that you get when you click the "+" icon in the Members tab of the Media Set window; they should all be present and available, along with the internal boot drive and any other directly attached volumes, in the first drop-down sheet. Are they?

 

How many different Media Sets are currently configured?

 

Perhaps some screen shots might help someone to identify what's happening.

[ferthalangur]

"I add a member, go into Add Share - afp://10.0.1.43/backup_5, username and password, the share gets mounted on the Retrospect server"

 

- So before this point "backup_5" was not already present in the Sources list?

- So you click "Add Share..." from the drop-down sheet to display a smaller drop-down sheet. There you enter the credentials, click "Add," and the smaller drop-down sheet slides up to reveal "backup_5" in the list.

- You select "backup_5" from the list and click "Add" in this larger drop-down sheet, which then slides up to again reveal the Media Set window.

- And in the Members tab you see the correct path on the Engine host machine as /Volumes/backup_5/

 

Yes?

Yes.

 

- Then you repeat the same steps, starting by clicking on the "+" icon in the Members tab of the Media Sets window?

- And from the same drop down sheet you click "Add Share..." and from the same mini drop-down sheet you specify a _different_ path (which just happens to start at the same IP address) and authenticate?

- And it is at that point you get the error?

Exactly. I tried to add a second member to the new Media Set by creating a share of a different path and then I get the error.

 

What does this mean? You are using volumes on this NAS in different, unrelated Media Sets? But in none of those Media Sets have you attempted to add an additional Member from the same hosting NAS?

Different, unrelated Media Sets is not a problem. I've been running my backups in 4 Media Sets, each which comprises one member

on a volume from a similar hosting NAS, without a problem.

 

If you have successfully used all of the NAS shares as storage for Members of different Media Sets, then all four share points would be present in the Sources window. Are they?

 

And looking individually at each of the share points in the Sources list, does the "Path" field in the Summary tab show the paths you expect?

Yes, all four share points are in the Sources window, and all four have the paths that I expect.

 

Note that if all four share points are already present in the Sources list, you would not need to click the "Add Share..." from the drop down sheet that you get when you click the "+" icon in the Members tab of the Media Set window; they should all be present and available, along with the internal boot drive and any other directly attached volumes, in the first drop-down sheet. Are they?

Understood. When I click the "+" icon they are all present and available and with the expected paths. However, Retrospect

still won't let me add a second member from the same NAS.

 

How many different Media Sets are currently configured?

Four Media Sets are currently configured as desired, each with one member. All work fine, have been for a year.

I'm trying to create Server Set C with multiple members from the same NAS and I get the error message and no

member added.

 

Perhaps some screen shots might help someone to identify what's happening.

 

OK ... Here are my Sources. backup_6 is the one that I want to add to the Media Set.

 

 

 

Here are my Media Sets. backup_5 is the only member. I click on the "+" in order to add backup_6.

 

 

 

And this is what the error message looks like. I selected backup_6 and then clicked on Add.

 

 

 

And the same thing happens if I try to add a member from any other volume shared from the same NAS.

 

 

[f30e6e60-a263-4d69-8f60-c92703669308]

ok, it sure looks as if you're doing it right.

 

What does the 'mount' command in Terminal (on the Engine host machine) show?

[ferthalangur]

ok, it sure looks as if you're doing it right.

 

What does the 'mount' command in Terminal (on the Engine host machine) show?

 

Everything looks right as far as the AFP mounts go.

 

 

 

 

I have successfully used backup_5 from this NAS as the lone member of a Media Set used for backups

for months.

 

Retrospect is also perfectly happy to add backup_6 or backup_7 as the second member of

any of my existing Media Sets that have members shared from a different NAS IP address.

[f30e6e60-a263-4d69-8f60-c92703669308]

Yeah, I've reproduced this using built-in file sharing on OS X, setting two individual share points on different physical media, adding them both to Sources (via the machine's dns name, not its numerical addy), then getting the error when attempting to use the second volume as a Member of a Media Set.

 

I logged it as a bug. It's pretty arcane for Retrospect to be talking about "this disk" in such a context.

 

Interestingly, I got around the defect by creating a folder on the top level of the second volume, and selected that as the Member location. Retrospect accepted it and created its "Retrospect" folder within.

 

I wouldn't be thrilled with the idea of nesting folders with Retrospect 8, so I'd recommend you test more before deciding to go forward with this as a strategy. But it does seem to work.

 

 

Dave

[ferthalangur]

Interestingly, I got around the defect by creating a folder on the top level of the second volume, and selected that as the Member location. Retrospect accepted it and created its "Retrospect" folder within.

 

I wouldn't be thrilled with the idea of nesting folders with Retrospect 8, so I'd recommend you test more before deciding to go forward with this as a strategy. But it does seem to work.

 

Thanks Dave. I opened a ticket with Retrospect support on this and they asked whether I have the same problem with SMB.

 

I had the same problem with multiple members from the same SMB share with the same username.

 

Retrospect did allow me to have two members if I mounted one with AFP and one with SMB, which got me 50% better than before,

although it is ugly.

 

I did a little more testing and I found that if I used SMB, and I used a different

username for each share, I could add four members from the same NAS to the same

Media Set. That will do as a workaround for me until it is fixed.

[ferthalangur]

Interestingly, I got around the defect by creating a folder on the top level of the second volume, and selected that as the Member location. Retrospect accepted it and created its "Retrospect" folder within.

 

I wouldn't be thrilled with the idea of nesting folders with Retrospect 8, so I'd recommend you test more before deciding to go forward with this as a strategy. But it does seem to work.

 

Thanks Dave. I opened a ticket with Retrospect support on this and they asked whether I have the same problem with SMB.

 

I had the same problem with multiple members from the same SMB share with the same username.

 

Retrospect did allow me to have two members if I mounted one with AFP and one with SMB, which got me 50% better than before,

although it is ugly.

 

I did a little more testing and I found that if I used SMB, and I used a different

username for each share, I could add four members from the same NAS to the same

Media Set. That will do as a workaround for me until it is fixed.