Saving up data

[BElearner]

I am having a problem on duplicating around 1TB plus data on 1.6 TB Tape drive. How can I compress the data and fit in the tape drive, or is there any other way that Symantec BE can tackel my issue? Is there anything called  "doubling data" on one single tape drive?

Thanks in advance,

BElearner

[pkh]

The only thing you can do is to enable compression in your job.  If compression is enabled and your data cannot fit into one tape, then there is nothing else that you can do.  You just have to use another tape.

[BElearner]

Thanks. I did enable the hardware compression, but it didnot work. Someone told me to compress software, donot know how to do it, I am relatively new to Symantec BE.

[VJware]

You can try enabling software compression, however it will give you pretty much similar ratio as that of hardware compression (unless hardware compression did not work at all). Secondly, you also got to keep in mind lots of data types do not compress very well at all.

To enable software compression, edit the backup job, choose Storage on the left pane and then on the right-side, there is an option "Compression". Here you can specify software or hardware.

[BElearner]

Thanks. However, the edit on duplicate does not have software compression option. May be i am looking at the wrong place. 

[pkh]

This is correct.  Compression is always done during the backup.  You should not compress data which are already compressed.  If your backup produces 1TB of data during backup, this 1TB will be written out to tape as 1TB.

Are you using LTO4 tapes?  If so, then the 1.6TB is a marketing thing and assumes a 2:1 ratio. The native uncompressed capacity of LTO4 tapes is only 800GB, so to store 1TB of compressed data, you need 2 tapes.

[BElearner]

Yes I am using LTO4 tapes. I am backing up data on internal raid first, and then on to the tape. But i didnot see any software compression here. Do you think choosing "software" compression will help to produce less than 1 TB of data (the actual data is more than 1TB) which inturn will help to fit it on the tape?? 

[pkh]

It all depends on the type of data that you have.  If you have a lot of compressed data, like zipped and movie files, sound and picture clips, then turning on compression may result in more data than what you have started with.  See my article below for an explanation.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/compression-short-explanation

Turn on software compression and see what is the result.  You have to specify sofware compression because your disk does not do hardware compression.  Hardware compression is normally for tape drives.

[BElearner]

thanks. I could see that the software compression was already turned on. The only option left for me to do is to use 2 tapes. Can you pointout to me what do i need to do to use two tapes considering that the data that needs to be backep up is more than 1.6 TB? 

Am i looking at the right place?

[pkh · Accepted solution]

 I could see that the software compression was already turned on

Are you sure?  In your previous screenshot, compression is shown as None.  To turn on compression, it needs to be set to Software.

To use two tapes, just put 2 tapes which can be overwritten in the scratch media set. BE will use them and put them in the media set targeted by the job. Make sure that you set the OPP appropriate.  If you set the OPP too long, you would run out of ovewritable tapes because they are all protected.

[BElearner]

I have got this 2 TB external HD which is connected to the server where Back up Exec resides in. I need to extract about 1.5 TB data from one of the jobs to this 2 TB external HD. Googled like all day but could not find a solution. Any suggestions? I am new and learning to use backup exec 2012. Thought it would be like   plugging in USB and doing the copy paste stuff...seems like it's much more than that....

[BElearner]

Thanks. I accidentally uploaded the screenshot of some other job.