rocketfactory Posted March 30, 2004 Report Share Posted March 30, 2004 Greetings gang, I'm brand new to the Retrospect family after having migrated from 'some oither' backup software that was not performing up to spec. We are a video production company and I am in charge of all 'data management' if you will. Currently I have over 200+ GB to back-up and have been having no success with Retrospect. At complete random occasions, retrospect reports an error 204 (device busy) when writing to DVD-R media. I have followed the manual's instructions and shut off all types of file sharing and ethernet activity. I went into the OSX system prefs and told OSX to 'ignore' blank DVD-R and CD-R media when inserted. I have the newest Retrospect Driver Update 5.2 loaded for Retrospect 6 OSX. I have two DVD-R units connected to this G4 in particular. one is an internal Pioneer DVR-105, and the other is an external Pioneer DVR-106D. Both are on the compatible devices list. I have run the drive configuration utility for both CD-R and DVD-R for both drives. I don't get the error when writing CD-R disks, only when writing DVD-R. This machine is completely inactive with no other software running in the background, and just to confirm, I receive the same errors on another apple ibook. Sometimes Retrospect will backup 200 mb to a disk and fail, other times 4.3GB. And even more mind throtling, it might make 3-4 disks, and then fail midstream on the next. I'm running out of backup solutions, i need to find one that actually works. Does anyone know what else might be causing these erros / failures? I'll continue running some tests.. but i know i've got a pile of about 25 DVD-R coasters here as a casulty thus far... Any help is super appreciated.. feel free to hit me at chris@rocketfactory.com if you want as well.. thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfactory Posted March 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2004 Further testing results here: When I erase the rdi custom configuration files for my drives, and then perform a backup, it seems to work. Just at an amazingly slow pace (1x DVD-R i assume). It appears to 'stream' the data stright to the DVD-R as opposed to when I have the custom configuration set, and it copies bundles of data to the internal HD, then pauses and writes to the DVD-R. These are 4x DVD-R drives, and i shouldn't have to burn at 1x to make this work... is there any other way to configure these drives to work properly?? as usual, any help is super appreciated, Chris @ The Rocket Factory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patlee Posted March 31, 2004 Report Share Posted March 31, 2004 Chris, The built in Retrospect drivers for the Pioneer drives are the optimal drivers. Retrospect uses packet writing for maximum reliability when storing data. Due to limitations in the packet writing specification of the DVD-R/RW format, writing to DVD-R/RW for backup can be quite slow even with higher speed media. This is a limitation of the MMC specification followed by the drive manufacturers for the DVD-R/RW format. The DVD+R/RW format is optimally designed for data storage needs such as backup and supports a streaming method that is both reliable and optimal for speed. Retrospect can write to DVD+R/RW media at over 200 MB a minute depending upon the data being written to disc, which compares to between 30-60 MB a minute with the DVD-R/RW format for the same data. Since you have access to a drive that supports both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW formats, I recommend using your external Pioneer 106 drive with DVR+R/RW media. This will give you the both speed you want and reliability you need. Pat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfactory Posted March 31, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2004 Pat, Thanks for the +R suggestion. I will run over to Best Buy and grab a 10 pack just to try it out for now. Will I have to re-run the configuration utility again to set up the 106 with +R media in Retrospect as opposed to my current -R operation? I can't wait to see if this will work. Thanks for the suggestion. Chris @ The Rocket Factory PS> I just upgraded the firmware on all my drives for further compatibilty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted March 31, 2004 Report Share Posted March 31, 2004 You should delete the driver created by autoconfigure and try using the built in driver with that media. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketfactory Posted April 1, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2004 Amazing. It appears to work with the +R disks. Before with the -R i was getting around 85MB/sec and now with the +R i'm getting around 280MB/sec. WOW! Thanks for the info, I apprec. Also, I hope others find this thread and benefit as well... Chris @ The Rocket Factory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lloydalvarez Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Hey Chris, I'm runing into the same 204 error and want to switch to +R as it seems you had success with that, but is it ok to have both -R and +R disks in the same backup set? And have you found any brands that work better than others, or do all +R disks work fine? thanks -lloyd Quote: Amazing. It appears to work with the +R disks. Before with the -R i was getting around 85MB/sec and now with the +R i'm getting around 280MB/sec. WOW! Thanks for the info, I apprec. Also, I hope others find this thread and benefit as well... Chris @ The Rocket Factory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregory Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 personally, I'd love and prefer to use DVD+R discs. unfortunately, Retrospect generates a lot of 206 errors when using them. furthermore, Custom Configure cannot successfully chose a writing method with DVD+R discs even when device writing is set to Medium. iMac 17"/1GHz/1GB Pioneer DVD RW 107D v1.16 Mac OS X 10.3.5 Retrospect 6.0.193 (Trial) my 204 errors with DVD-R media: Retrospect version 6.0.193 launched at 2004/08/13 02:04 + Retrospect Driver Update, version 5.2.101 + Normal backup using Scanned docs backup at 2004/08/13 02:58 To backup set Scanned docs Set A… Warning: volume The Library has the Ignore ownership setting enabled. - 2004/08/13 02:58:36: Copying Scanned documents ƒ on The Library… Trouble writing: “1-Scanned docs Set A” (2202009600), error 204 (device busy). 2004/08/13 03:12:47: Execution stopped by operator. Remaining: 4902 files, 148.4 GB Completed: 142 files, 2.1 GB Performance: 165.1 MB/minute Duration: 00:14:11 (00:01:29 idle/loading/preparing) + Normal backup using Scanned docs backup at 2004/08/13 03:13 To backup set Scanned docs Set A… Warning: volume The Library has the Ignore ownership setting enabled. - 2004/08/13 03:13:34: Copying Scanned documents ƒ on The Library… Trouble writing: “3-Scanned docs Set A” (3284140032), error 204 (device busy). 2004/08/13 07:38:48: Execution stopped by operator. Remaining: 4833 files, 143.5 GB Completed: 69 files, 5.1 GB Performance: 159.0 MB/minute Duration: 04:25:14 (03:53:01 idle/loading/preparing) another post details the 206 and Custom Configuration problems I am having with DVD+R discs. this is increasingly frustrating. I need reliable backups to DVD discs and so far, Retrospect is failing to impress me. to be fair, the discs I am currently using are cheap but are rated to 8x writing speed. I will have to fork out a little more money and buy the next grade up of discs to see if the problem persists. I have no interest though in helping Apple get richer by buying its 8x discs. it would cost almost US$200 to backup my 200GB drive!!! regards Gregory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted August 16, 2004 Report Share Posted August 16, 2004 Hi Since Retrospect was unable to create a driver for your drive this error is understandable. It sounds like there is a hardware or firmware problem that are preventing Retrospect from working well with the device. Better quality discs may help but its hard to say for sure. Does the drive work well in the finder and itunes? Thanks Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gregory Posted August 27, 2004 Report Share Posted August 27, 2004 (many many hours of testing later) Retrospect seems to be working with my DVD+R media now. I've deleted the rdi file and updated to the latest RDU but the update notes do not mention the Pioneer drive and I don't think that the RDU is the reason that my backups are working. instead, I suspect the media itself. if I use coated DVD+R media, Retrospect fails. if I use uncoated DVD+R media, there are no problems. iTunes has no problems with the coated media though so it might be the writing method that Retrospect uses which is causing the problem. I have noted that coated media burnt with Retrospect looks darker than uncoated media as if the burning temperature was too hot for the coated media. I have now backed up to at least 25 discs of uncoated DVD+R type without incident. on the other hand, backing up to coated DVD+R discs produced a failure rate of around 7 out of every 10 discs. I'm using e-blue discs. the Professional DVD+R8X discs are the coated discs I've been using. the Tape DVD+R are the uncoated discs. Question. why does verification take so much longer than writing? regards Gregory (cross-posted from the Incomplete backup thread) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted August 30, 2004 Report Share Posted August 30, 2004 Hi It may be that Retrospect is having trouble reading the burned disks. The read retries may be slowing things down. Its actually hard to say for sure. Retrospect runs as fast as the hardware will allow. The read/compare time may be related to the 204 errors you were seeing. Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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