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BackupExec 2010 dropping tape drive offline

Alistairc
Level 3
Hi,
This is a new topic to re-open the issue discussed here:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/tape-drive-goes-offline-second-backup

J
ust to recap on the issue itself:



Running BE2010 Trial on Windows Server 2008 R2 x64.  Hardware is Dell R710 rack server, connected to a HP Ultrium 1760 LTO4 SAS drive via a Dell PERC 6/E SAS Adaptor card.

This is what’s happening:

  1. Setup and run a backup job with full verify.  I’ve tested up to a 250GB job and it completes fine the first time around.
  2. After completion of first job, rerun the same backup job (after tweaking the media overwrite/append etc settings)
  3. The job immediately fails, reporting the drive as offline – cannot bring drive back online using BackupExec administrator
  4. Close BackupExec administrator, restart BackupExec Device/Media service (which also restarts associated service dependencies).
  5. Re-open BackupExec administrator - drive appears to be online again, ready for another job to be kicked off.

 
I’ve completely replaced:

  • Numerous LTO tapes
  • The Dell SAS adaptor that connects the Dell server to the HP rack chassis
  • The HP Rack chassis that houses the 1U internal HP LTO4 Ultrium 1760 SAS drive, SAS adaptor board and all
  • The internal HP LTO Ultrium 1760 drive itself

 
We’ve verified that all above component drivers and firmware are fully up to date.  This problem occurs with both Symantec Tape Drive drivers and HP's official LTO4 tape drivers,
 
To me, the following facts suggest that the problem lies with BackupExec itself:

  1. After the drive goes offline, a simple restart of the BackupExec services seems to bring it back online again
  2. If the drive goes offline, and I stop the BackupExec Device/Media service, I can still access the drive using HP LTT utility, and HP Data Protector Express – only BackupExec detects the drive as offline.
  3. We’ve replaced all possible hardware components and the problem still remains
  4. This problem only ever occurs with BE, I'm testing with HP Data Proctector Express and MS's Data Protection Manager - all work fine.

Luckily, I haven't bought a license for BackupExec yet, however this means I doubt Symantec Support will be willing to spend too much time on it, so I might be forced to go with MS's Data Protection Manager instead if I can't get a resolution soon.

Has anyone seen/resolved this issue before?


Alistair
40 REPLIES 40

Sigmund79
Level 1

I had the very same problem with a HP Tape Drive and a Dell (IBM) TL-2000 tape library.

The problem is the controller. You need to use a plain HBA (without any RAID functionality). I wasted so much time and so many tapes looking for a BE bug or a registry key to be corrected/modified. Currently i'm using a LSI SAS-9207-4i4e HBA without any problem.