Backup Exec 2010 R3 SP2 with 2 different tape drives in robotic library

Hi,

if you have a second drive, do you have an extra Library Expansion Option license to enable that? If not, you need to purchase 1 more LEO to allow you to use the second drive. BE only ships with support for 1 drive.

Thanks!

I read about that a couple of minutes before I created that post but really wonder about that because we have 2 other libraries using Backup Exec 12.5 SP4 with 2 LTO4-drives in a library and their I have no problems! Since when do I need 2 LEO licences for 1 robotic library with one or more tape drives?

Just to let you know ... both drives are enabled. Shouldn't one drive be disabled, when the license is exceeded?

Should this be the solution to my question?

Not necessarily, no. If you didn't load the extra LEO license when you installed BE, then it's not going to work.

the other thing to check out is whether or not your library's manufacturer allows for 2 drives of different capacities to be mixed inside the library.

Well in the case of an MSL4048 HP library, the 2 LTO4-drives work perfectly with 1 LEO license! There is no alert presented from Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 SP4 that I need to add a second LEO license! Why?

In the case of the MSL2024 HP library in combination with Backup Exec 2010 R3 SP2, I will check with the manufacturer, if 2 different tape drives are allowed and I can activate another LEO license, if that's really possible and will solve my initial problem.

No, you're wrong, it won't. Only 1 drive will be in use at any given stage. That's the way it works. So the first drive that is activated during a job will be used, while the second will sit idle.

The extra LEO should solve this, but it's a licensing issue and you'd need this to comply with licensing terms.

The first drive is includes in the Backup Exec media server. So you require 1 LEO, which you have, so you won't receive any alerts.

Mixing drives seems to be supported according this HP note:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c02532755/c02532755.pdf

Just to let you know, we have 1 media server license and 1 LEO license installed for BE2010. Shouldn't that be enough to operate 2 drives in one library or do I need a LEO license for every tape drive in the library, e.g. 4 LEO licences in an MSL4048 HP library, which is capable to communicate with 4 drives simultaneously.

I always thought the LEO license is for the library and not for the drives, so no matter how many tape drives are installed, one LEO license is enough?

Well reading ZeRoCOOL's posting confirmed that I have the necessary licenses available. Now, I wonder why BackupExec uses the LTO5- and LTO3-drive to make an inventory of ...

...MSL2024 [0001..0012]

instead of just using the LTO5-drive? The LTO4-tapes are neglected and I get errors for the inventory job, which doesn't surprise me!

In the 2 different 'Device Pools' I clearly removed the LTO3-drive from the MSL2024 [0001..0012] and so I did remove the LTO5-drive from the MSL2024 [0013..0024] Device Pool?

What's going wrong here?

...any easy test is to disable the 1 drive and see if it runs the job on the other.

Then re-enable the drive and try running a job in parallel...

Ok, that's what I see from the 'Job Monitor' ...

The device name for the 'Inventory Job' is always MSL2024 instead of MSL2024 [0001..0013] which holds the LTO3 tapes! Allthough I explicitly clicked the right mouse button on the MSL2024 [0001..0013] entry, the job is initiated on the MSL2024 !!! In this case it's no wonder that the LTO3-drive is used for the inventory as well.

How can I prevent this?