LTO7 drive compatibility with BE2014

[ZeeMir]

Hi guys. I am planning to upgrade my tape drive to LTO7 15000 SAS from LTO4 1760 SAS which i have used since 4 years with BE2012 & BE2014. But now the data to backup offsite has grown more than 5TB which makes it tough to manage & also requires 5 LTO4 tapes.

I have already checked the latest HCL provided by veritas but it does not include LTO7 for Backup Exec 2014. It shows upto LTO6 only. Now i would like some info from people who have used LTO7 with BE2014, if it is compatible & has better performance than LTO6.

Thanks in advance for sharing your views.

[CraigV]

Hi, Bear in mind the LTO rules...read 2 versions back (LTO5), write 1 version back (LTO6). Using LTO7 will ensure you can't use the LTO4 tapes at all unless you're keeping the LTO4 drive running, or you duplicate the information on the LTO4 tapes to the LTO7 tapes (both drives need to be connected). If LTO7 does not show up on the BE 14 HCL then it isn't supported, and if anyone has managed to get it working then they're lucky. You won't get support from Veritas until you move onto a version that does officially support LTO7. Thanks!

[ZeeMir]

Thanks CraigV for your reply. I understand the 2 versions back read 1 version back write but LTO6 wont server my purpose since data is growing literaly exponentialy. i will keep LTO4 for reading the tapes i have.

Also please if you can confirm that LTO4 & LTO7 SAS cables are the same. I dnt wana spend on card.

Hope someone has better experience with LTO7 & BE2014. would wait for few more replies.

[CraigV]

Hi,

No, I won't confirm that You need to deal with your hardware vendor and ask them that question.

LTO7 and BE 2014 should work like LTo6 and BE 2014 etc. etc. etc.

Thanks!

[jurgen_barbieur]

for your concerns about performance:

this envolves the whole chain (target server, target disks, target networkconnection, network devices (routers, switches), destination networkconnection, destination dsik or tape, ...) if youor current performance bottleneck is your source disk, there will no solution in configuring LTO7 because this can cause an averse affect resulting in poor performance (cfr shoeshining effect).

Also software like antivirus can slow down the performance of your backups.

to (possibly) increase performance, you can consider using a (fast) staging disk and targetting multiple backup jobs to it, and schedule duplication to tape when no or less backups are running. 

[Larry_Fine]

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@ZeeMir wrote:

Hope someone has better experience with LTO7 & BE2014. would wait for few more replies.

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Do not hold your breath for more replies.  LTO7 is NOT supported with BE 2014, so I doubt many people are using that combo.  I know hardware encryption doesn't work with that combo.  LTO7 requires BE 15 FP1 or higher, according to the HCL.

If a single LTO6 drive doesn't give you enough capacity, then I would suggest a small tape library (8 slots or so) with an LTO6 drive as an alternative to a single (unsupported) LTO7.  A small tape library/autoloader give you a huge increase in capacity and flexibility, for a fairly small investment.  Since you have an HP tape drive now, the StoreEver 1/8 G2 might be attractive.

Or you can upgrade your BE version to one that supports LTO7.