Forum Discussion

Wumpus's avatar
Wumpus
Level 0
6 years ago

Unable to add tape library robot

Hello Forum!

Im a sysadmin and I use my good old Backup Exec 2010 with a 24 slot Dell Powervault TL 2000 Robotic Tape Library and 2 LTO4 Drives (on a Windows Server 2008 R2). The Dell Library is attached to te Etherenet Network. Further the 2 LT04 drives in the library are attached via SAS cards directly to the Server. This worked well many years.

Now we have a new Tape Robotic Library,  a Fujitsu Siemens Eternus LC40 LTO7 with 24 slots and 2 LTO7 drives (yeah!).

It was bought for another machine but I would like to use it also with this older Windows machine. Ive plugged the SAS cables from the Windows machine onto the two drives. The new Tape Robotic Library is also on the Ethernet network.

I installed all the drivers for the drives I have into Windows.

Now I see this:

When the old Dell Robotic Libraryis switched off and the new Eternus Robotic Library is switched on:
In the Windows device drivers a Robotic tape Library shows up as "Unknown Medium Changer" in the properties it says its at Location 2 (Bus Number 0, Target Id 10, LUN 1).

I am unsure if thats the old Dell or the new Eternus (I guess the new one as the old one is off?).

Also under Tape drives I see the two LTO7 Ultrium HH7 Drives.

All these entries in the device drivers have no red or yellow icons - they are working correctly.

In BackupExec I see both new LTO7 tape drives and I can make a new device pool out of them.

However what I cant seem to do is add a new Robotic library. How do i do that?

I tried the Configure Devices wizard and click Tape Devices, then "Configure Robotic library drives" - then the drives show up as "Stand alone Drives". Then the wizard completes and nothing has been added. Whatever I do It doesnt seem to create me the same Icon as the old Dell Robotic Library has.

So my Problem is: In Devices, under the Computer, how do I add another Robotic Tape Library?

I already have a device Pool with both tape drives.

What I also dont understand is how BackupExec communicates with the Tape changer. Via the Ethernet or over the SAS interface of one of the drives?

I tried to backup to the Devicepool I made but I get the Error Message:

The job failed with the following error: The operation failed to acquire the minimum number of drives and media needed.

How do I add the Robotic Library?

Best wishes and thanks

Wumpus

 

 

 

2010 all revisions
Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Larry_Fine's avatar
    Larry_Fine
    Level 6
    6 years ago

    What tape library are you using?  You mentioned an LC40, but I cannot find that.  If that was a typo and you meant an LT40, that is supported by BE 2010, but only up to LTO5.  To get to LTO7 support, you would need to upgrade to BE 15 or newer.  All of the HCLs can be found at http://www.backupexec.com/compatibility

    That being said, I would expect you to be able to get some functionality out of this config, but likely not hardware encryption in the tape drives.

    You should not need to do anything to add the changer within Backup Exec.  When a supported changer is discovered by Windows and BE when the BE services start, it is all automatic.

     

    re: What I also dont understand is how BackupExec communicates with the Tape changer. Via the Ethernet or over the SAS interface of one of the drives?

    Windows and Backup Exec communicate with the tape changer over one (or both) of the SAS cables using a "control path".  Usually a single control path is enabled in the primary tape drive by default at the changer factory.  Since you appear to be seeing a changer in Windows, I assume thie changer is still configured this way (which is good), but use the library web interface to look for a "control path" setting and verify.

    The first step is to connect & power up the new library to the BE server.  Then power cycle the BE server and see what it discovers.  If things don't look proper, please post your adamm.log here and it can be examined.