Tape backup library and retrospect

[fidelg]

I have three questions about Retrospect:

 

First question:

I have retrospect for Mac on a Xserve G5 MacIntel with the following spec:

 

Xserve OS X 10.4.10

Retrospect 6.1.126

rdu 6111101

Scalar 24 with a Dell PV-132T SNC4000 all with the latest firmware.

Apple Quad Fibre Card.

 

Keep in mind that it is working fine.

 

Now the Scalar has only one LT02 drive, I wonder if I add a second LT02 drive. Will retrospect take advantage of the second drive.

 

 

 

Second question:

I have retrospect for Mac on a Xserve G4 first generation with the following spec:

Xserve OS X 10.4.10

Retrospect 6.1.126

rdu 6111101

Scalar 24 with a Dell PV-132T SNC4000 all with the latest firmware.

Apple dual Fibre Card.

 

I read somewhere in the forum that the apple dual fibre card has some problems with retrospect so I decided to check for new drivers or firmwares I didn't find anything in the Apple site, but I did find the firmware in the LSI site and I updated some of the cards that I found around the office ( still need to update three more). I noticed that they work better than before.

 

The Apple dual fibre card is a PCI-X, but it still hangs up when I try to restore some of the times. It is just really un-pleasant. Should I get the Atto FC card. Any recommendation about it.

 

 

Third question:

If I connect the two libraries to a FC switch will retrospect sees them as individual library or it just sees them both as the sum of its parts.

 

Thanks in advance your your help and recommendations.

[rhwalker]

Sorry I can't help you with these questions because our tape drive isn't a Scalar 24, and our tape drive / autoloader on our Xserve G5 connects via SCSI LVD (ATTO UL4D). We have successfully (during our transition from our older DAT tape drive to our present Exabyte with autoloade) used multiple tape drives with Retrospect, but, again, I don't have experience with your particular hardware configuration. But I have two comments:

 

(1) in your first question, you say that your hardware configuration is a Xserve G5 MacIntel. There is no such hardware. There are Xserve G5 servers (we have one) and there are Intel Xserves. Clarification might be needed in order to answer your questions.

 

(2) we have found ATTO's hardware and support to be excellent.

 

Russ

[Mayoff]

Retro for Mac can not write to 2 tape drives at the same time. It will span from one drive to another as the tapes fill. You can do a BU Set transfer from one drive to another also.

[GMRMacBackup]

Response to your first question: Boy do I wish it would work with 2 drives, unfortunately the Retrospect code is not capable of multi-threaded operations. As Mayoff indicated, it will perform tape to tape transfers but it doesn't have the ability to split a workload simultaneously over 2 drives at the same time.

 

Second question: I highly recommend the ATTO FC-41XS, it is a single port, 4GB Fibre Channel card for PCI-X. I had an Apple dual Fibre card in my G5 XServe but was never able to restore at a decent speed. The ATTO card performed at 2500MB/min on my recently retired G5 and now is giving me 3000MB/min on it's replacement, an Intel Xserve.

 

Third question: Unknown. I would suspect you could configure them as independent devices but that would likely be a function of the SAN software. Whether or not Retro in it's current state would recognize it is up for speculation.