Forum Discussion

iaw's avatar
iaw
Level 5
12 years ago

Tape Drives assignment

Hi,

I have 3 servers for media server with Tape library 12 drives.
What would be the best practice scenario,
1. Assign 4 drives for each media server or
2. Assign all as shared drives to 3 media server

Thanks,

IAW

7.5
Backup and Recovery
Configuring
NetBackup
UNIX
  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    12 years ago

    I would share all 12 drives between all media servers and limit the max amount of concurrent drives per media server in the Storage Unit config.
    So, if all media servers can see all 12 drives and max drives in each STU is set to 4, any of the media servers can access/use any available tape drive but limited to 4 drives at any given point in time.

    You will need to perform tests on the media servers to find what the maximum of tape drives are that each media server can stream simultanously. If media servers and clients are all on 1Gb network, the media server can only receive data at a maximum rate of +- 100MB/sec. This means that you will only be able to stream 1 tape drive per media server.
    If media servers are on 10Gb network, you will be able to stream more tape drives, provided that media servers have enough memory and cpu to stream more drives.
    Even highly spec'ed media servers will battle to stream more than 4 drives simultaneously.

    You may want to download the Planning and Performance Tuning Guide: http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC4483

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    I would share all 12 drives between all media servers and limit the max amount of concurrent drives per media server in the Storage Unit config.
    So, if all media servers can see all 12 drives and max drives in each STU is set to 4, any of the media servers can access/use any available tape drive but limited to 4 drives at any given point in time.

    You will need to perform tests on the media servers to find what the maximum of tape drives are that each media server can stream simultanously. If media servers and clients are all on 1Gb network, the media server can only receive data at a maximum rate of +- 100MB/sec. This means that you will only be able to stream 1 tape drive per media server.
    If media servers are on 10Gb network, you will be able to stream more tape drives, provided that media servers have enough memory and cpu to stream more drives.
    Even highly spec'ed media servers will battle to stream more than 4 drives simultaneously.

    You may want to download the Planning and Performance Tuning Guide: http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC4483

  • mph999's avatar
    mph999
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    I like the idea of keeping it simple, if x4 drives per media server is workable for your environment, this is a more simple set up than SSO .

    M

  • iaw's avatar
    iaw
    Level 5
    12 years ago

    I have 20 drives in tape library and 2 media servers.
    I only have 18 nbu drives licenses, no SSO license.
    For this case, I think I only able to assign 9 drives for each media server?

    How about the Drive FC connection in OS level?
    Should each server able to see 20 drives and just configure drives assingment in nbu?
    or
    Each server only can see 9 drives in OS level by zoning?

    Thanks,
    IAW
     

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    12 years ago

    How did your environment change so drastically between 2 July (date of your original post) and today?

    I believe we have answered your original query.