Backup to Two Drives in Parallel

[Sean_Kelly_-_RJ]

Hi,
We currently have a backup that is about 2.4 TB in size. Using 2 LTO5 tapes. Currently it is running on one tape drive and we are unable to get a backup every day because of the size of the backup. We are using backup exec 12.5 but would consider using Backup Exec 2012 if it could resolve the issue.

Is there a way that I can use two standalone tape decks, each with their own tapes and run one backup job that writes to both tape decks at the same time - sort of like a RAID 0 idea? Doing so would allow me to complete a backup faster then waiting for tape one to complete, then putting in tape number two and then waiting for that one to complete.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

[ZeRoC00L]

No, BE does not support such a feature. You better create two jobs with different selections and run there together.

[Moe_Howard]

Running simultaneous backups could help your situation. You might see a slight drop in performance if both the drives are on the same controller or channel. When considering the second drive be mindful of giving it exclusive access to/from the server over sharing a path with the other drive.

If you are going to purchase another LTO drive, consider getting an LTO6. This would probably fit your backup job on one LTO6 tape and can still read/write to your LTO5 tapes. It will also read (only) LTO4, if you have any.

Regardless of which drive you purchase, Backup Exec can run backup jobs in parallel.

Lastly, your issue really has nothing to do with backup software. It's more about fitting your job's runtime in to your backup window.

Good luck.

[Sean_Kelly_-_RJ]

Moe Howard: To my understanding, LTO5 can support up to 3 TB using compression. I don't believe I know how to compress a 2.4TB backup onto an LTO5 Tape. Is this something BExec handles? Would there be a downfall of compressing the backup to fit on an LTO5 Tape?

[lmosla]

If I understand correctly, since Backup Exec does not do multiplexing, you would need to split your job into two selection lists with one running on tape drive (1)  and the other on the tape drive (2).  In addition in order to make this work you would need a Library Expansion Option License.

[Moe_Howard]

Sean Kelly - RJC: Tape drive marketers claim 3 TB on a single LTO5 cartridge assuming a compression ratio of 2:1 is achieved. In most cases, you're likely to average within the 1.2:1 ~ 1.5:1 compression ratio range. Backup Exec sends the proper SCSI commands, which enable hardware compression on a tape drive.

I was agreeing with your idea about going with two stand-alone tape drives and splitting the job across both AND running the jobs simultaneously. Most of my post revolved around things to be aware of along the way.

Does that make sense?

lmosla: In a multi-stand-alone tape drive configuration, there is no media changer. Why would the LEO option be needed?

[Sean_Kelly_-_RJ]

Gotcha. One last question which could either make or break this. Suppose the setup is like this

\\Server\Folder\SubFolder1

\\Server\Folder\SubFolder2

I assign SubFolder1 To the first backup job, and then assign SubFolder2 to the second backup job. A user then adds \\Server\Folder\SubFolder3 after the backup job has been created. As far as I can tell subfolder 3 will be left out of the second backup job because I can't then select the \\Server\Folder root, as I would be able to if it was a singlular backup job. I would need to go and change the backups daily to account for any new folders created in the \\Server\Folder?

Can you figure a way that the second backup job automatically picks up any new folders created? It's a petty question but this could consume a lot of my time adding new folders that are created each day.

[pkh]

If you are going to purchase another LTO drive, consider getting an LTO6

This is not supported by BE 12.5 which the OP is using.

[pkh]

In your second job,  first select

\\Server\Folder\

then deselect 

\\Server\Folder\SubFolder1

this will enable new folders to be automatically selected.

If the older folders are not changing everyday, you might want to consider getting the file archive option and archive them.  You then backup the archives and do not have to back up these folders everyday.

[Colin_Weaver]

Just to clear a couple of terminology points up

Multi-plexing would be writing steams of data from two sources to one device - BE can't really do this with tape, although allowing concurrent writes to Backup to disk or deduplication folders does emulate a form of multiplexing in a manual way.

Multi-steaming would be writing the same data source to different devices in parallel for a performance increase (analogous to some forms of RAID) . I believe NetBackup  can do this but would be an expensive option so probably not approriate to the original poster's request. Backup Exec can do it in a manual way in that if you have 2 tape drives and you split your jobs into 2 you could write data to both tape drives at the same time. However this is a manual configuration and  there are limitations. For instance you can't split a VMware job to less than a single VM and there might be VSS snapshot issues if you tried to backup half of one windows volume to one drive and backup the other half of the same volume to a different drive at the same time.