Restore from LTO-6 tape

[SkySquirrel]

Greetings, everyone...  I am puzzled if I will be able to restore from old LTO-6 tape after upgrading to the new environment.

My old environment was:  Windows Server 12 R2, using BE15, backup to IBM LTO-6 tape drive

I am planning to upgrade to: Windows Server 2022 with the latest BE22, backup to new new LTO-8 tape drive

In case I need to restore from old LTO-6 tape, is it supported restore from BE22 while it was backed up by BE15?

And should the Inventory and Catalog operations done first before the restore?

https://veritas.com/support/en_US/article.100042698

[pkh]

Your LTO8 tape drive should be able to read LTO6 tapes, but not write to them.

BE 22 should be able to restore from your BE 15 backups.  However, check that there is no software from the time of BE15 has been taken off support by BE 22.  For example, SW ver. 10 is no longer supported by BE 22, then data from SW ver, 10 cannot be restored.

[StoneRam-Simon]

Unfortunately only lto 3 to lto 7 drives could read 2 versions back. LTO8 can only read one version back... so lto6 tapes will not be readable.