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LTO-3 Hardware/Software Compression

wmarais_floodg8
Level 2

Hi guys,

 

INFO:

Server: HP DL180 G6

TapeDrive: HP StorageWorks Ultrium 920 SAS

Software: Windows Server 2012 R2 / Backup Exec 15

 

Problem:

LTO-3 Tapes only have 400GB uncompressed storage, and the tape drive does not support LTO-4 (If I'm not mistaken)

The backups I am doing are 395GB and they fail because (media full)

 

I have tried to figure out how to setup hardware/software compression, without any success.... 

Can someone please explain to me how/where to configure the compression?

 

Thanks

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

CraigV
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Haven't seen anything outlining that LTO3 can't do hardware compression, and the easiest way to test this is to download HP Library and Tape Tools, stop the BE services and run the compression test. This will tell you whether or not the drive can do this.

We used to get HW compression on 1/8 G2 autoloaders when doing this test on LTO3-based drives with no hassles.

It might be that your data is expanding if it is already compressed which would result in less space being used on a tape.

Thanks!

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6 REPLIES 6

pkh
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LTO3 tape drive cannot read/write LTO4 tapes. You need to use LTO3 tapes. LTO3 does not support hardware compression. You have to use software compression. Compression is set in your backup job.

wmarais_floodg8
Level 2

Hi @pkh

 

I have figured out that much yes.. Thank you

 

Even after setting "Software" on the backup job option it does not do any compression..

 

Please have a look at attached screenshot and advise

 

Thanks.

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Haven't seen anything outlining that LTO3 can't do hardware compression, and the easiest way to test this is to download HP Library and Tape Tools, stop the BE services and run the compression test. This will tell you whether or not the drive can do this.

We used to get HW compression on 1/8 G2 autoloaders when doing this test on LTO3-based drives with no hassles.

It might be that your data is expanding if it is already compressed which would result in less space being used on a tape.

Thanks!

pkh
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The stats reported are correct. The data are already compressed when it is sent to the tape drive. To get a sense of what the congestion is like, check the joblog to see how much data your are backing up and how much ends up on the tape. For example, you backup 80GB and 60Gb ends up on the tape. This means that you have a compression ratio of 1.5

wmarais_floodg8
Level 2

My Backup job is running on 2 different server I have noticed that on the one it does compression 3,5:1 and the other 1,2:1

 

So I am the one that was wrong here, it all is setup and working like it should.

We are just going to look at the data that are being backed up, and make a decision from there on thank you for your help!!

pkh
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Ah!  Got my hardware compression and hardware encryption mixed up again!