BE2014 - LTO3 Tapes Compression issue

refer http://www.veritas.com/docs/000084338

...your compression ratio is all 1:1. Make sure that compression is set to Hardware if available, otherwise Software and see if that makes a difference!

Thanks!

What was your previous/old version of Backup Exec?  BE changed significantly in BE 2012 and up, so if you were using BE 2010 or older, you are possibly being affected by the changes in BE behavior, rather than a hardware issue.  Sometimes BE 2012 and up tends to use more different tapes and not fill them up if you don't adjust your strategies.

I see that your full tapes all show 1:1 compression, but some of your "not-full" tapes show a valid compression.  I would definitly explore doing tape drive diagnostics.

You don't see to fix this article exactly, but it is something to keep in mind as it is hard to diagnose.  http://www.veritas.com/docs/000017157

Hi Craig,

Thanks for your reply

Yes Hardware compression is enabled already, ( I might check enabling software compression and see later today )

Note: There a  tape yesterday  which was showing as 2.4:1 compression, I erased it, made it a scratch tape before runninng the daily backup last night. Backup completed ok as usual , but now the tape is showing as 1:1 Compression again :(

Hi Larry,

Thanks heaps for getting back on this.

We had the same BE2014 before, same build and Patch. Our previous server had hardware issue so we just baught a new server and setup BE2014 again on the new server.

I did a test on one of the tapes which was shwoing  as 2.4:1 compression,  I erased it, made it a scratch tape before runninng the daily backup last night. When I check this morning Backup completed ok as usual , but now the tape is showing as 1:1 Compression again :( so this shows me this has to be with BE 2014 ?

When I called the Veritas support yesterday they were trying to tell em that this is a Tape Media issue and the LTO3 tape that Im using might nogt support compression. This is not true as we always had been using the HP Ultrium LTO3 (C7973A ) 800GB RW tapes.

Not sure if you got a chance run through the tests mentioned in http://www.veritas.com/docs/000084338 earlier. Please update us with results of tests performed using HP Library Tape Tools utility

Hi Gurv,

I didnt get a chance to run that yet as the system is in DC, and we need someone to manually load a tape to the drive to do this tape (After disabling all BE services )

I've done following test on HP Drive and confirmed that Hardware compression is enabled on the drive and OK, after tjhat I follwed https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.TECH50960 on how to run tracer.exe . see details below (Full log file attached as zip file). Looking at the data bits does ti mean that Data Compression is not configured properly in BE 2014 ? (I have already enabled "Hardware Compresion " in backup jobs )

From Tracer

Just another update, I've run the same test backup using Compression: Hardware (if available, otherwise Software ) , no difference, still the tapes comes up as 1:1 compression . Attached is the log file for this second test

Did you run a compression test in HP LTT?

Have you checked to make sure there are no excessive Hard Write Errors on those tapes in question within BE?

Thanks!