Sony SDX-900V/AIT-4 Problems -- Does anyone actually watch this forum?

[Nick_Ushio]

I know that Symantec has moved their support options away from e-mail and to this forum. But is this actually an effective solution? I've seen people posting the same issue I am having for months, with no resolution, I haven't even had a response to my most recent posting. And since our backup needs are getting critical I thought I'd check again to see if anyone has been able to get Backup Exec working with the AIT-4 Tapes.

My problem......It doesn't use the full capacity of the tapes, we aren't talking compressed capacity, we are talking native capacity. On a tape with 200GB Native capacity, we are getting 120-160 GB's of data being backed up before it reads as full. This is with compression enabled. I have installed 10D, and Installed the latest driver updates, and it hasn't helped. Other people are having the same issue with these drives/tapes.

While we can manage going one day, or two, without complete backups, this is getting to a critical point. We can't get complete backups (File's in use, etc) if we have to switch tapes and do a mid-day backup. The whole point in making our purchasing decision on the drive and this software was because it was listed as tested to be compatible.

Is anyone else having this issue? Or has anyone seen a resolution to this?

-Nick

[Jason_McClellan]

Nick

I would suggest that you check the tapes you are using. It sounds like you may be using AIT-3 tapes in your AIT-4 drive.

I have an AIT-3 tape library and an AIT-2 standalone drive both from Cybernetics. Backup exec has never had any capacity issues, although it has never reported compression accurately it has always worked right with my hardware. Most importantly, I can tell BEWS that I put in an AIT-2 tape, but if it is really an AIT-3 tape in the drive, it will STILL put 100 gigs on it. Backup exec does not 'decide' the tape is full, the drive tells Backup exec when the tape is full - it is a hardware function.

Check your tapes - they should be labelled "SDX4-200C" if they are the right tapes. if not then you have your problem. While your AIT-4 drive is backwards compatible with all previous generations of AIT tapes, 1,2 or 3, it will only get the capacity of whatever type of tape you put in it, ie 35, 50, or 100GB.

If this is not it, the next place I would be looking is OS drivers. The 'tape is full' function is just not something BEWS performs.

[Nick_Ushio]

Jason,

Thanks for responding. I actually posted this 3 days ago and am getting a response on that thread finally.

I am quite sure they are AIT-4 Tapes. In fact, a forum search for AIT-4 lists at least 3 other users having the same issue I am having. Also, this worked perfectly fine when we were using this before our upgrade and purchase of 10.0/D. This is definately something to do with BackupExec

I have a sneaking suspicion from other forum posts and similar issues people are having that it is related to a compression issue. Backup Exec is doing some weird things when it comes to hardware compression, in many cases (such as mine) resulting in less than native capacity results. Of course everyone says Symantec is pointing at drive issues.

I am going to try NTBackup tonight just to see what kind of results I get to compare it to something.

[Jason_McClellan]

If it worked fine before upgrading, that is a different story! :)

Please do keep the thread updated, I am very interested in your results as I have been thinking about adding an AIT-4 drive, as my backup jobs take multiple AIT-3 tapes.

Do you have active support? Call them! I have been browsing the forums here looking for info on this issue I have, regarding the reporting of hardware compression ratios, and I have been very unimpressed with the lack of actual response from Veritas in this supposedly moderated support forum.

[Nick_Ushio]

No I don't have active support, and while I wish I had purchased it right now, I don't think I should need it. Their active support people won't talk to me about this, which is frustrating since I am not calling asking how to set up a job or anything like that, I am simply trying to get their program to work as it said it would.

It seems to me, that since this drive, and tape, are listed on the compatibility list as "tested" ie tested and compatible by someone in their lab, that it should not be giving nearly the issues it has. ALthough I also know this is not restricted to just this drive and this tape, people all over are having issues not even getting native capacity.

So if anyone has active support and has called on a similar issue and resolved it, you could easily make everyone's day by sharing the process you went through to resolve it.

We like BackupExec, but just can't get it to work for us right now.

[Jason_McClellan]

did you just buy Backup Exec? if so shouldn't you be entitled to some sort of 'getting it running' installation-type support, even though you didn't buy maintenance? most respectable companies do this..

that said, the maintanence is not expensive, and I think you can add it on.. it is well worth it to have in general, because your backup solution is not something you want to have to fudge around with! THAT said, I agree you should not have to purchase support to solve a problem like THIS. Call them up and complain LOUDLY. It would be a different matter if you were trying to use unsupported hardware, but if your drive is on their compatibility list, and it is not working properly, call support and bitch until somebody helps you. I would consider it completely unacceptable for this situation, ESPECIALLY since they obviously do not offer any actual help in these forums. It might be different if the forums were good for something, but as you can see, they are pretty useless. Seems the 'moderated' part is just there to repeat the same crap you can find on your own in the FAQ.