VXA-2 Incorrect Capacity Fix?

[Ronald_Langley]

Hi,

I have a SCSI Exabyte VXA-2 drive running on Server 2003 with BE 10d. The tapes have a capacity of 80GB, but BE thinks the capacity is only 13GB. I have the latest drive firmware and BE tape drivers, as suggested by Symantec.

Has anyone found a workaround for this problem?

Has anyone heard when the issue will be fixed by Symantec?

Thanks.

[priya_khire]

Hello,

Is it a standalone drive or a library or an autoloader? Where does BE show its capacity as 13 Gb instead of 80 GB? Is it during a backup? Are you using hardware compression? Do you get any errors or alerts in BE related to the device or media? Which version of drivers have you installed? Ensure that the device is compatible with BE 10d:

http://support.veritas.com/docs/281670

Revert with details.

Note : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked �assumed answered� and would be moved to �answered questions� pool.

Regards.

[Ronald_Langley]

Answers to your questions...

-It is a standalone external SCSI Exabyte VXA-2 drive.
-I see the 13GB capacity when I click on the Media tab, select the set, then the specific tapes.
-After a tape is used in a job, it shows the 13GB capacity.
-Yes, the job is set to use Hardware Compression.
-No errors.
-The listed drive in the Hardware Manager is 5.1.18.0
-The driver file that I downloaded and installed is "BackupExecTapeDeviceDriverInstall20060615_284012.exe"
-The compatibility doc says that "Capacity and compression reporting is not currently supported for this device."

My hope is that someone has found a manual workaround or that Symantec has an update coming very soon. With BE thinking the tapes are only 13GB, my backup system is useless.

Thanks.

[Ken_Putnam]

Capacity and compression reporting is not currently supported for this device

No matter what capacity backup exec reports for the tape volumes, you should be able to get the native capacity on each. Don't county on 2:1 compression though. I generally figure on about 1.3:1 as a Rule Of Thumb

[Gauri_Ketkar]

Hi Ronald,

Have you tried running job more than 70GB on this tape? If yes,Does that job run or generates any Alert ?


Revert for any further Query
Hope this will help you


Thank you
Gauri

[Joseph_Wagner]

I am using a SCSI VXA-2 drive with BE 10d on Win2003 server as well. I have not had the problem that you are describing though. All of my tapes show 80gb capacity in the media window.

I know that I used the driver that came with BE when I first installed it and I haven't changed it since.

Have the tapes been formatted by any other application?
Have you applied the latest updates to BE?

That's all I can think of for now. Good luck.Message was edited by:
Joseph Wagner

[Deepali_Badave]

Hello,

Please keep us updating on this issue.

Thank you,

[Ronald_Langley]

Thanks to everyone who has replied.

Yes, I do have the latest software installed.

The tapes have only been used with BE10. I did a long format on a tape and then tried a full backup again. BE still shows that the tape has a 13GB capacity, but it shows a used capacity of 32.2GB (which matches up with what the job log shows having been backed up). It spits the tape out and asks for another during the job. I'm trying to backup about 70GB, which should fit on an 80GM VXA-2 tape without a problem.

Any other ideas?

Thanks.

[priya_khire]

Hello,

Is the tape capacity 80 gb with compression enabled? Was that 32 gb backed up using backup exec? Try the following steps:

- do a right click on the device and disable it
- then delete it from Backup exec
- restart all the BE services

Check the tape capacity. Do let us know if the issue persists.

Regards.

[Ronald_Langley]

Hi,

The tapes are 80GB Native/160GB compressed. Yes, the 32GB was backed up using BE (it's the only application that has been used with the tapes).

I followed your suggestions and the capacity is still listed at 13GB. I did a long erase on this week's tape last night and it backed up 35.9GB before deciding it was full and asking for another tape.

Last night's tape lists a compression ration of 2.75:1.

Thanks.

[Ken_Putnam]

Just for grins, try shutting down all BackupExec services, and use NTBackup. How much do you get on a tape then?

It sure sounds like a driver probklem to me.Message was edited by:
Ken Putnam

[Sharvari_Deshmu]

Hello,

Please try the steps suggested earlier and revert if the problem persists.

Thanks,

[Ronald_Langley]

Sorry for the slow reply. It took a few days before I could work on this again.

I ran a job in "Backup" and it backed up everything (73GB) with no problem. For some reason, I had to remove the drive and re-add it in hardware manager to get Backup to use it. When I did that, it loaded the Exabyte driver, rather than the Veritas driver.

After that, BE wouldn't use the tape drive, but a restart the BE services fixed that. BE shows a total and available capacity of 73.4GB. I am now in the process of erasing the tape and then I'll run a full backup in BE to see if it works like it did in "Backup." I'll post results on Wednesday.

Thanks again to everyone for your help.

[Sharvari_Deshmu]

Hello,

Thanks for the update, we are awaiting the results.


Thanks,

[Ronald_Langley]

I've done a couple of full backups since the new driver mentioned above. The tapes are now working at a higher capacity, but still lower than their 80GB native capacity. I have noticed that BE lists the compression on the tapes now as .791:1. I am backing up the old slow "server" over the network using the BE agent. Is it possible that the slow data transfer is causing the tape to not work at its best compression?

Thanks.

[priya_khire]

Hello,

Compression should not be affected due to network issues. If the hardware compression is not working, you could possibly check the hardware specifications. Make sure that 'use hardware compression' is enabled. Check the device firmware, make sure it is at the latest version, check the SCSI card drivers.