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Colton50's avatar
Colton50
Level 2
5 years ago

Incompatible storage media detected in robotic library

Hi, I have a HP MSL 2024. It's been working fine but I'm looking to add more tapes to my rotation. I purchased some LTO6 tapes and put the barcode labels on them. Before this I only had LTO4 and LTO5...
15
Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Larry_Fine's avatar
    Larry_Fine
    5 years ago

    What generation is your tape drive in your MSL 2024?

    If you were writing to LTO4 and LTO5 cartridges before, I would assume you have an LTO5 tape drive as that is the only generation of tape drive that can write to LTO4 and LTO5 cartridges.

    An LTO5 tape drive is NOT compatible with LTO6 cartridges.  The MSL is compatible, but the reality is that it all depends upon the generation of tape drive installed.

    IMHO, if you only have one generation of tape drive in your tape library, please turn off the bar code rules in Backup Exec and avoid any confusion.

Colton50's avatar
Colton50
Level 2

Thanks for your response! We have an MSL 2024 Gen 3. I checked the drives on my MSL 2024 and sure enough they're all labeled LTO5. The goal is to phase out our older tapes and run entirely LTO6.

I see on the MSL 2024 optional parts page, there are two different types of upgrade kits. There is an FC or SAS. What's the difference and how can I tell which kit I need?

Larry_Fine's avatar
Larry_Fine
Level 6
5 years ago

FC is fibre channel.  That is typically an orange semi-delicate-looking cable.  It would likely connect to an FC switch and not directly to your server.  But your server would alos have an FC cable connecting the server to the FC switch.

SAS is a sturdier cable that would run directly to your Backup Exec server.

Since it sounds like you have multiple tape drives in your MSL, you can upgrade just one tape drive or upgrade both at once. 

If you upgrade both tape drives at once, you will lose the abilty to write to your LTO4 cartridges.  You can still read LTO4 cartridges with an LTO6 drive, so you could stil restore from LTO4 cartridges.

If you upgrade just one LTO5 drive to LTO6, then you might want to enable the Bar Code Rules in Backup Exec to make sure the right cartridges go in the right drives.

  • Colton50's avatar
    Colton50
    Level 2
    5 years ago

    Looks like it is a SAS type plugged directly into the server. One final question, will I need to update the firmware or drivers for the LTO6 tape drive to work, or should it be plug and play? I can't seem to find a manual for the C0H27A on the internet or it is blocked by the company firewall.

    • Larry_Fine's avatar
      Larry_Fine
      Level 6
      5 years ago
      Colton50 wrote:

      One final question, will I need to update the firmware or drivers for the LTO6 tape drive to work, or should it be plug and play?

      It should basically be plug-and-play, especially if you reboot the server after changing the tape drive.  Windows should recognize it automatically, but it may do it OK with a hot-swap too.  Backup Exec services will definitely need to be restarted to detect the new hardware, if you do not reboot the whole BE server.

      You do not want the HP or IBM tape drivers.  BE works best with the basic Microsoft drivers.