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SAS LTO-5 hardware support in BE 9.2 for NetWare?

LewisR
Level 2

As the last HCL for BE 9.2 NetWare is dated 2008, I was wondering if anyone had tested 9.2 with any of the latest SAS LTO-5 drives.

Any experience would be greatly appreciated.

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pkh
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BE 9 is already end-of-life.   I am quite certain that LTO5 will not be supported.  Some of the older versions of BE does not even support LTO4

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pkh
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BE 9 is already end-of-life.   I am quite certain that LTO5 will not be supported.  Some of the older versions of BE does not even support LTO4

LewisR
Level 2

Actually, it's been EOL for some time. I'm wondering whether anyone had/has tested any of these newer drives.

Thanks.

CraigV
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Hi Lewis,

 

Probably not. If its not on the BE 9.1 HCL it isn't supported. Even if you miraculously got it working, Symantec wouldn't support the configuration so pkh is quite correct on that.

You'd have to upgrade to at least BE 12.5 (confirm the HCL again) to get support for that drive. I highly doubt that SAS interfaces were around during the time of BE 9.1...

 

Craig

LewisR
Level 2

Thanks, Craig.

In fact, HP has had NetWare drivers for SAS controllers for some time. The real issue is LTO5, I think. And of course, as there is no BE 10, 11, 12, or later for NetWare, "upgrading" beyond 9.2 is not possible (though switching to another backup solution is).

There are a number of reasons to transition off of NetWare at this point in time, however, when this particular client does make the move, it will likely be to Linux (we have a couple Windows servers there for specific apps, but not clustered; the NetWare cluster is hosting - among other things - BE, and overall, it works quite well). We're just down to a point of having to do a tape drive replacement, and I'm considering options beyond daisy-chaining multiple LTO3 drives.

I've never relied on Symantec support, as frankly, they simply haven't helped the few times I really needed them (this was not the case with Veritas, Seagate, and Arcada - yes, we've been working with Backup Exec since the 5.x days). So, that's not a major concern to me. Investing $3K+ for a drive which simply won't work, however, is a major concern. wink

Thanks again!

CraigV
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Shucks, that does suck. If you managed to get a supported device (and I am sure that HP would have had devices that BE 9.1 would have supported) you'd have been in the pound seats.

Any chance you can swop the drive for another...? =)

LewisR
Level 2

Actually, it looks like the best option is indeed to swap out the Ultrium 960 for another one (HP still sells these new). They have a 3U rackmount chassis which can handle up to two full-height drives or four half-height drives. The entire package, with one drive, is about $3K, however, the chassis by itself (new, from HP direct) is about $500, and they have a core replacement available for the Ultrium 960 for ~$800 ($400 core charge, credited upon return of the failed drive).

The second drive bay at least allows us to increase capacity to 1.6TB (3.2, if I were to swap - down - to the half-height Ultrium 920's, which are considerably slower). I was just thinking about the next drive replacement, at whcih time I will likely not be able to get new LTO3 hardware, and only refurb (and we all know how broad a term "refurb" is).

It doesn't make a lot of sense to be forced into a platform migration simply because of a failing tape drive!

 

Thanks again!

 

Cheers.

CraigV
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Pretty good if you can get LTO3 for now.

I reckon LTO3 will be End-of-Life as soon as LTO6 is released...That said, by that time it might be worth looking at the latest version of BE at that point, or if you really need to continue using Netware 9.2, for other backup software that supports it.

You'll find though that as other vendors drop support for old hardware, so does Symantec (and everybody else)...