Needing a back up solution over my tape drive

[fenderltd]

One of my servers at work backups Mon-Fri about 2.5 gigs of a program we use. its setup before I got here was a tape drive with Vertias backup software. It errors everyday but thursday for some reason. I have checked the settings, the days are selected etc.
I have replaced the tapes etc and I am ready to burn this tape drive. I would like to see about a hotswap setup even if its only 2 drives and take 1 offsite at night. Open to a lot of suggestions. Thanks in advance

 

[dirtydr]

Does the etc part of "I have replaced the tapes etc" include running the cleaning tape a few times?

 

[AreEss]

Does the etc part of "I have replaced the tapes etc" include running the cleaning tape a few times?

Couldn't have said it better myself.

However, every day but Thursday is odd. Sounds to me like there's a significant difference in backups. Without the error message though, not much I can say there.

 

[fenderltd]

Like stated I have no exp. with tape drives. Please explain more and I will get the error message

 

[Wang191]

Double check that the tapes are not write locked.


Did a job for a client and they wanted to know if the tapes were backing up. I checked the logs and the tapes they used for mon-wed and saturday stoped writing like 5 months prior to my visit. Turns out that 2 of the tapes were locked and 2 were full.
Hopefully that may give you some insight.

 

[fenderltd]

I checked the tapes and they are all un-locked. I am wondering about if they are full for years its been backing up this way and when the backup service runs it overwrites the data. Still checking everything out...

 

[SJConsultant]

The veritas logs should indicate what is causing the problem. Post any error messages Veritas generated.

 

[fenderltd]

======================================================================
Job server: SERVER
Job name: Oakstreet
Job started: Friday, January 13, 2006 at 11:00:06 PM
Job type: Backup
Job Log: BEX28.txt
======================================================================

Drive and media information from media mount:
Robotic Library Name:
Drive Name: Seagate 1
Slot: 0
Media GUID: {CB96F4F8-0336-48A4-9C23-F2FF8F61E4F6}
Media Label: MC000006
Overwrite Protection Time Left: None
Append Time Left: Infinite
Targeted Media Set Name: Media Set 1

======================================================================
Job Operation - Backup
Media operation - overwrite.
No compression enabled.
======================================================================

Media Name: "Media created 1/13/2006 11:00:06 PM"
Backup of "D: DDRIVE"
Backup set #1 on storage media #1
Backup set description: "Oakstreet"
Backup Type: FULL - Back Up Files - Reset Archive Bit
Backup started on 1/13/2006 at 11:00:58 PM.

Backup completed on 1/13/2006 at 11:49:00 PM.
Backed up 17914 files in 49 directories.
Processed 2,588,938,466 bytes in 48 minutes and 2 seconds.
Throughput rate: 51.4 MB/min
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Media Name: "Media created 1/13/2006 11:00:06 PM"
Backup of "\\SERVER\System?State "
Backup set #2 on storage media #1
Backup set description: "Oakstreet"
Backup Type: FULL - Back Up Files - Reset Archive Bit
Backup started on 1/13/2006 at 11:49:01 PM.

Backup completed on 1/13/2006 at 11:54:02 PM.
Backed up 2158 files in 79 directories.
Processed 268,197,408 bytes in 5 minutes and 1 second.
Throughput rate: 51.0 MB/min
----------------------------------------------------------------------

----- TapeAlert Events -----

Warning
Device: Seagate 1 (SERVER)
A severe error occurred while reading or writing data. This job may not have been successfully completed.

======================================================================
Job Operation - Verify
======================================================================

Storage device "Seagate 1" reported an error on a request to read data from media.

Error reported:
Data error (cyclic redundancy check).

^ ^ ^ ^ ^



======================================================================
Job ended: Friday, January 13, 2006 at 11:58:08 PM
Job completion status: Failed
======================================================================

 

[SJConsultant]

Do a tape cleaning and see if that clears up the problem.

Any idea how old the tapes are? You may need to invest in a few new tapes if the cleaning does not work.

 

[fenderltd]

drive was cleaned. tapes are 1 month old