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bitformer's avatar
bitformer
Level 3
7 years ago

VHD Backup2Tape turns Tape Offline

Hi,

we have some issue with a BE15 Installation on a 2012 R2 Hyper-V Host. Server has an internal Tape Drive LTO-6 and a NAS as iSCSI Target attached.

After weeks of normal function one day the backup of a 2.500 GB fileserver (3x VHD File) started turning off the Tape drive cancelling the job. I can not turn the drive online again (by unchecking the Offline checkbox). But i could bring the Tape Devise online again by restarting all BE Services within BE Service Manager. Event happens always after some 250 GB of the backup of that VM so probably at the same VHD and maybe the same bit/block etc.

On the other Hand: The Backup to a local Drive (íSCSI Target / NAS) with the same GRT job runs smoothly. I can even duplicate the VM backup set of that specific VM from local iSCSI Storage to the Tape Drive without any problem. All Hardware Checks by the vendor of server/tape drive were successful and without any error.

The only indication from the day it stopped working are some defrag errors in the VMs event log a few hours before the first backup fail.

Anyone an idea? bit-error in VHD? Update to BE16? duplicate Disc IDs? Limitation of LTO Filesystem or VHD size when backup is directly to tape.

Obviously i can workaround the problem by duplicating the VM from local backup to tape.

Installation:

Hyper-V Host with 5 VMs (50-2500GB each) (all 2012 R2 latest Patchlevel)

internal LTO-6 Drive SAS

local B2D Storage (iSCSI Target from NAS)

BE 15 FP5 with HF: 115844, 116031, 116730, 126145

best regards

Torsten

15
Windows Server 2012 R2

8 Replies

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  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    7 years ago

    Perhaps the tape is full.   Did you check whether there is an outstanding alert asking you to insert an overwritable tape into the tape drive?

    • bitformer's avatar
      bitformer
      Level 3
      7 years ago

      Hi pkh,

      media set is 4 days overwrite/append. Tapes are on daily basis so always 6+ days.

      There is a daily inventory job 15 minutes before the daily backup tasks making sure the tape is correctly recognized.

      The jobs are defined as "append or overwrite, if no appendable media is availabe" (2nd checkbox).

      There are also no outstanding alerts with tape change request.

      best regards

      Torsten

      • Larry_Fine's avatar
        Larry_Fine
        Level 6
        7 years ago

        When BE takes the tape drive offline, it should throw some alerts and put some entries in the adamm.log file.  Do you see any alerts?  Cn you post the adamm.log file?

        What SAS HBA/controller are you using for the tape drive?  Hopefully it is not a RAID controller, unless it is one of the few certified ones.  see https://www.veritas.com/support/en_US/article.000038683