Procedure for backing up to multiple USB drives?

[mike_coreit]

Hi can someone give me the correct procedure to get multiple USB external hard drives backing up properly in Backup Exec 10d?

Thanks

[Ken_Putnam]

See pkh's article at

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/how-rotate-external-harddisks

[mike_coreit]

I just tried the bemcmd script that was mentioned in that article and it doesn't appear to work. Any other suggestions?

[pkh]

Unfortunately, the -o60 and -o61 switches are implemented in later versions of BE.  You would have to use the BE console to make the disks online after you have plugged them in.

Alternatively, you can upgrade to BE 2010 R2.

[Colin_Weaver]

10D was not really designed to rotate USB so it is strongly recommended to upgrade to 2010 R2 which is designed for it and then the following notes apply:

1) Make sure you are using at least Backup Exec 2010 R2

2) Create a uniquely named standard Backup-to-disk (B2D) folder on each USB disk

3) Put each B2D device into a Device Pool

4) Make sure the jobs target the Device Pool

5) Make sure the jobs start as overwrite (not append then overwrite if no appendable) as this can affect IMG overwrites too, Warning: you must get your overwrite protection settings configured so that data is not overwritten early.

Notes:

USB drives should always be safely removed/ejected from the operating system (don't just unplug them)

Don't restart the BE services with the USB disks connected to the server (or read workaround in http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH155949 )

Recommending to start jobs as overwrite applies to all disk based backups (B2D-BKF, B2D-IMG and DeDuplication) on fixed or detachable disks as it limits the media family sizes and unless "Allocate the maximum size for Backup-to-disk files" is enabled has no effect on the amount of disk space used.

[mike_coreit]

I don't see there being an issue just because the software was not designed for backing up to USB drives. Does Backup Exec 10d have any sort of scripting support? Can we automate some part of the interface to make the drive appear online?

[Ken_Putnam]

You can use Windows Task Scheduler to execute a CMD file calling BEMCMD to pause and then unpause all of your B2D devices shortly before your backups are due to start

[pkh]

BEMCMD which is the commandline interface for BE (scripting support) is available for BE 10d, but as you have found out, the switches for pausing/unpausing devices are added later.