ttubbiola Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 Running 8.1.148 on a dedicated Mac Pro connected directly via Fiber to an Exabyte Magnum 448 LTO-3 Library. This Mac Pro is also connected to a QLogic Fiber Switch and is a node of the XSan. Had set up 2 backup jobs to run. First went off as planned, 6PM start for about 2 TB of Data. Completed before the next job was scheduled to start. Second job was set for 10:00 a.m. to backup about 5 TB of data during the work day as an impact test against the XSan and video capture capabilities. The log shows the job starting as scheduled but then shows a -205 error (lost access to storage medium). Any ideas on what I can change? The host machine is a clean install Mac Pro w/8GB of RAM running 10.4.11. Have to run Tiger until we can upgrade the XSan. A successful complete backup is the first step in the upgrade process and we are having zero luck with Retro 8 so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ttubbiola Posted July 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 Replying to my own post, just got onsite and the First backup failed with the same error. First one got through about 60GB of data. Second one failed after 25GB. This is Extremely disappointing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 205 error is a hardware error reported by the tape drive itself. Does the tape unit display any error codes on the LCD when this happens? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ttubbiola Posted July 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 Thanks for the reply Robin, No, the tape drive just shows as Idle. Running another backup over the three day weekend after moving the unit from direct connection to the Fiber switch. We'll see what happens Monday. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted July 2, 2009 Report Share Posted July 2, 2009 You don't say whether or not the Exabyte library and drive's firmware is up-to-date. You might check: Exabyte Magnum 448 firmware and software Have you tried to run Exabyte's ltotool to check operation of the drive, etc? See link above. Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ttubbiola Posted July 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2009 Update on my situation: No change to my situation after moving the Library to the Fiber Switch. Started a 2TB backup on time and got 38GB into it then Retrospect "Lost Connection to the Drive". Ran the Exabyte tools on it and everything comes back fine. I then did the Exabyte ltoTool Full Tape test where it writes up to 1TB (or until it fills the tape) and then reads it all back. The unit passed with flying colors. So I have to conclude that the issue is back to Retrospect 8. Time to go try BRU. Maybe EMC could buy the Tolis Group and then use the BRU Engineering Team and the Retro User Interface Team and fire everyone else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted July 9, 2009 Report Share Posted July 9, 2009 Please call into tech support directly so we can help you resolve the problem. We can collect debug logs to learn more about the failure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ttubbiola Posted September 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 Well, going to give the latest Retro 8 a shot. Tried BRU for 2 months and while it was able to happily give us a full backup it has had many issues with the subsequent incremental backups. Also I'm fairly certain that the interface was designed by monkeys in funny hats. So I am crossing my fingers that Retro has resolved some of the issues that I kept having while using the first release version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ttubbiola Posted September 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 Good start so far. . . . . It seems that I have to manually load, erase and unload all 45 tapes. Also the console beach balled while trying to add a tape to a media set. Lovely. . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 2, 2009 Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 You should not need to do that. When you select the loader under Devices the erase command should be able to load and erase all the tapes. Make sure the library is not in a sequential mode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ttubbiola Posted September 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 Thanks Robin, I think I've got it now. One question, I have 45 tapes Bar Coded 00001 - 00045. Will Retro use them in ascending order? Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted September 2, 2009 Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 Not necessarily. You can add the tapes to the media set ahead of time to lock in the order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted September 2, 2009 Report Share Posted September 2, 2009 Tried BRU for 2 months and while it was able to happily give us a full backup it has had many issues with the subsequent incremental backups. Note that BRU requires that you set your drive up for sequential access of the tapes in the library because BRU cannot manage the autoloader, and relies on the autoloader to automatically switch the tapes as if the tape drive held one big long tape. If you had your autoloader working with BRU, then you would have had to change the autoloader from its default configuration (used by Retrospect) to sequential access. Change the control mode to SCSI (from sequential) so that Retrospect can send commands to the autoloader, and change the emulation mode to Native (if it's not set for that already). Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ttubbiola Posted September 4, 2009 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2009 Thanks Russ. Do you have any info on where I would go to check that setting? Exabyte LtoTool? Front panel of the library? The unit is at a client site so I have limited access. For what it's worth I received a report from my client that the backup failed. She sent me a screen shot but I have no way of knowing what happened until I can get in there again. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhwalker Posted September 4, 2009 Report Share Posted September 4, 2009 Well, I don't have the LTO autoloader; instead, we have an Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 1u PacketLoader (SCSI) with the Ethernet Admin interface. Attached is a screen shot showing where the setting is for our unit (some settings have been redacted for obvious reasons), and the LTO autoloader is similar (see below). Basically, it was an early hack for those software packages that didn't support autoloaders, such that the software would start writing to one tape and the autoloader would then eject that tape when full and load another, making appear to the software that there was just one big long tape. Here's the manual for your autoloader: Magnum 448 See page 93 of the manual regarding configuring the library for "random" (what Retrospect wants) or "sequential" (what BRU wants) access of tapes in the library. Random mode means that the program has to cycle the library, load and unload tapes, etc. This setting can be done from the front panel (see page 124) or from the ethernet admin (see page 93). The Exabyte LTOtool utility only manipulates the drive, not the library. The Exabyte LIBtool utility only manipulates the library but can't configure it. Hope this helps. If you have network access to the ethernet admin interface (and if that interface has been set up), then you could do this remotely and wouldn't have to visit the client. VPN is your friend (we use VPN Tracker from Equinux). Russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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