Problems with BE 10 d and the Friday- and MonthTapes

[beck2oldschool]

I´ve got BE 10 d SP4 on a Windows Server 2003 R2 Server, a LTO-2 Streamer, one Backup Job and a Backup Volume about 180 GB.

I do a Grandfather-Father-Son Backup, that means, I have 1 Tape for Mo-Thu (one for each day), I have 4 Friday Tapes and one Tape for each Month, and one Tape for the year. I didn`t change the Backup Job for a long time. Since a few time, I have the problem, that the backup job interrupts only with friday and month tapes. He would like to have an additional tape to finish the job. The tape has space for 200 GB and he ask me for an additional tape at sometimes 70 GB, sometimes 160 GB, sometimes 130 GB.

I tried a full erasure on the tape first, so that no data is on it befor the backup job starts. I bought new tapes. Nothing solved my problem. He always ask me for the additional tape except last friday. On this day the backup was succesfully finished (also from Mo-Thu every week).

I deaktivated the hardware and software compression. I checked the tape drive with the HP Library and Tape Tools - without errors except a recommended firmware Update. I did the firmware Update but the job still interrupted last friday.

Has anyone an Idea?

Thanks in advance

Michael

[Backup_Exec1]

Hi,

First of all BE 10 is end of life & if you are entitled for an upgrade please upgrade to more recent version of backup exec like BE 2010 or above, so that you are entitled for an support from Symantec when you call them.

Thanks

[pkh]

After you turn off both hardware and software compression, did you check the joblog to verify that the job is not doing any compression.  Also, did you check much of each resource is backed up and whether these numbers match what you see on your disks?  For example, your C: drive is 150GB and around 150GB is backed up onto your tape.

[CraigV]

Hi Michael,

Ignoring the advice above to upgrade (especially if you can't!), have you checked your compression on the tapes after a job completes?

If your Daily jobs complete without any problems, then I'd suggest checking your Append/OPP settings on your Daily set and compare with your Append/OPP settings on your Monthly/Weekly sets and see if there is any difference.

Thanks,

Craig

[beck2oldschool]

First of all thanks for trying to help me.

@pkh

The joblog said, that no compression ist active.

The backup volume is every day the same. There is no growing to friday or something like that. So, the volume has to be the same on friday like monday, tuesday etc. Last friday the backup job was completed successfully with the same volume as on thursday.

@Craig

I have just one mediaset. All tapes are in this set with unlimited appending and overwriting. I don`t know how it is exactly called in english. I have got the german edition.

Why only with the friday tapes and with month tapes? There is all just the same as every day except the tapes. Crazy...

[pkh]

Check your Friday and monthly jobs and make sure that they specify overwrite, not append.

Since you don't want to append to your tapes, you should set the AP in your media set to 1 hour.  This way other jobs will not append to the tape.

[CraigV]

...mmm...try erasing a tape so that it becomes scratch. Once done, run a Friday job manually and see what happens...

EDIT: 1 media set for a GFS policy? Makes no sense as you're defeating the object of having multiple retention periods depending on the type of backup run. You really should consider creating separate media sets for Daily/Weekly/Monthly...

[beck2oldschool]

I tryied to erase a tape and did a backup on it with the same failure. It don`t matter if have a brand new, a erased or an used tape

I have the following tapes

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Friday1 for the first Friday in Month, Friday 2 for the second friday in month, Friday 3, Friday 4

January, February, Marc etc

All this tapes are in one BackupExec Mediaset. So all tapes have the same configuration.

[beck2oldschool]

In the job was overwrite already configured.

In my german version in the Mediaset properties stand "appending period" What does this mean, when I set it to 1 hour?

The overwrite period is set to "no"

When I change the settings of a media set, will this appeare to all (old) media in this set or to all new upcoming media in the future?

When I look to the properties of the single tapes in this mediaset, I have some tapes with

Overwriting protection till: overwritable

Appending Protection till: Not appending (media full)

and some other with:

Overwriting protection till: overwritable

Appending Protection till: Not appending

Why don`t they have the same configuration for though the are in the same media set!?

[pkh · Accepted solution]

When you change the OPP and AP settings for a media set, all media in the media set, whether it is old or new, will be immediately affected.

In your examples, the first tape cannot be appended to because it is full.  The second tape cannot be appended to because the AP has been exceeded.

When you set the AP to 1 hour, this means that after the tape is first overwritten, it can only be appended to within 1 hour.  After 1 hour, the tape cannot be appended to.

To understand OPP and AP better, see this document

OPP and AP explanation