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Suggestions for hot swapping removable hard drives;

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Was wondering how you guys hotswap backup drives out of Windows 2003/2008 servers for daily offsite backups.

We do all of our backups to SATA drives, either to non-removable LAN or removable SWAP for offsite backups or both depending on the amount of data.           The offsite backups go to a SATA drive in a hot swap bay and it gets changed out on a daily basis which usually works well.

We found now if the server also has a Symantec Endpoint Client installed the hotswapping doesn't work as good anymore (using either the Hotswap or Driveswap or Swapmanager programs) as it keeps saying something is accessing the drive (even though we can figure out what that would be) and then failes to swap out properly. Anyways, I was hoping to get some feedback on what your experience is with this to hot swap drives for offsite backups. We prefer not to use the tapes as it's a very old technology and very slow.

Thank you.

Regards,

12 REPLIES 12

Sush---
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

In Backup Exec you can create a removable Backup To Disk folder on those Hot Swappable drive and then direct your backups to Removable B2D.

Ensure that you take care of following:

1) Do not swap the drives when the backup job is running

2) When you replace the drive ensure that it has the same Drive letter as previous.

 

Backup Exec will not keep the drive is use when the job is not running so it should allow you to swap the drive without any error/warning. May be something related to Symantec Enpoint client as you are getting that error only when SEP client is installed.

Just for testing purpose you can try to stop all Backup Exec services and then remove the drive and see if you are still getting the error during removing of the drive.

 

Thanks,

-Sush...

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Thank you for your reply.

We are using the removable B2D option for the offsite backups and obviuosly don't swap it when backup is running as it'll fail to swap out for sure then as it's in use. When we swap it in again the drive letter stays the same and that all is working well usually.

Was just wondering how other people do their backups, to LAN and removable SWP drive for offsite?. How do you guys swap out the drives? Do most people still backup to tape or just removable SATA drives?

Thanks again

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

Since you are using disks which can be hot-swapped, you should check the HCL for your version of BE to make sure that they are supported as B2D disks.

That said, for USB or eSATA disks, the procedure to rotate disk is given in my article below

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

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Thank you for this article.

However our experience is it works well even with older versions like 10d but we're not using device pools to rotate media.

We just create a removable B2D to the specific drive letter which doesn't change and BE backs up to it no problem. We then just hot swap these backup SATA drives and it'll just back up to whatever drive is in there which has been working very well. Our problem somtimes is that Windows doesn't want to swap it out as it thinks its in use somehow by something and we can't figure out what. BE hasn't been the problem at all, if Windows sees the drive BE will just back up to it.

Regarding the HCL list (not sure where to find this yet), for all our clients we just use regular WesternDigital or Seagate SATA drives on any version of BE 10d or 2010R2 and BE has no problem with it.

How is this using device pools and rotating drives different compared to what we do by using just a removable B2D and swapping the hard drives daily?

Thoughts?

Thank you!

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

You can search for HCL's at

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&key=15047&channel=TECHNICAL_SOLUTIONS&ba...

When I talk about support, I am not talking about the brand of harddisk.  I am referring to the hot-swap enclosure.  I am not sure it is supported.  If it is not, then BE will not be able to handle it correctly.  It may be that it does not release the B2D folder.

In any case, you should be using normal B2D folders and not removable B2D folders.  R-B2D folders are for thiing like Jaz drives, etc.

MECarreno
Level 2

The Backup Exec 2010 documentation lists using Removable B2D for removable disk drives (we use removable, hot swappable SATA drives).

What are the advantages in using B2D in this case? 

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

It has been clarified time and again on this forum by Symantec Tech Support that "removable hard disk" does not include USB or eSata external harddisks.

One advantage of using normal B2D is that you can have more than one B2D folder on the disk.

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Thanks guys for your comments. This ends up being an interesting issue.

For hotswapping drives for the offsite backups we use the Vantec EZ Swap 2 removable hard drive bay (which is not listed on the HCL list) which has been working just fine for our 10d and 2010R2 servers. There are some issues sometimes which are usually related to Windows not wanting to swap it out.

I can see the advantage of being able to have more then 1 B2D folder on the disk, however we have the 1 job backing up several servers daily and it always backs up to this removable B2D folder on E:. Whatever drive is in E: will get overwritten and it gets changed out daily. By creating the normal B2D folder instead with an actual path (instead of just using drive letter E:) to folders on that drive I guess it'll have to create this folder on each drive we put in. Sorry still don't see the advantage in our case at least.

I guess part of it could be that what is described in the link you provided above (https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/how-rotate-external-harddisks) the R2 version now marks B2D folders as online automatically. We use the normal B2D folders for the LAN backup destinations and if the LAN system is offline or gets restarted the B2D folders usually stayed as offline until you restarted the services. If now with R2 it checks for this automatically we could maybe try using them instead of the removable but as mentioned, I don't know what we would gain.

Thank you again for your input.

Regards,

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Hey MECarreno,

Just curious, what do you guys use then to swap out your drives?

What swap bays and what do you use in Windows to swap out the drives?

Thanks

MECarreno
Level 2

We use Addonics - works well for us.  Windows Server 2003 recognizes when a drive (in a drive tray) is removed or inserted.

We are just now testing how Backup Exec 2010 R2 SP1 handles this - hence my question about B2D or R-B2D.

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Ok, thanks for your reply.

So what software do you use to prepare Windows for the swapping out the drive (and back in).

Something like Driveswap32 or Swap Manager?

THanks

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Guys,

Any thoughts on the last post comment?

We really like to find out what works best for hot swapping SATA hard drives on a Windows 2008 BE 2010R2 server for the daily offsite backups.

I don't know if using normal B2D folders vs removable B2D folders makes any difference in being able to swap them out properly as with the BE service stopped we find the same issue. It might be a Windows issue??

What your you guys using to do this??

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thank you.