NB7 not using entire tape

[jc23]

Hey all , I have NB7 running on win2K8 R2.  I have a job that runs a full backup on a directory every day that is approx 2TB. I have LT04 tapes that's are 800/1.6 capacity. NB only uses ~650GB of each tape then switches to a new one. I will never even get to the non-compressed 800 GB capacity.


Any ideas why it will not fill the tape before switching to a new one?


Thanks in Advance

[marekkedzierski]

Check for hardware compression on drives. Maybe it's disabled ?
There is no tape capacity limit in NB, you can't set it to 650 GB. NB writes on tapes till the end and it's reported by tape drive (hardware).

[jc23]

compression is not enabled on the HW or thru NB for this job. THe folder/data thats being backup up in this job is already compressed.
And its not consistantly 650Gb some times its 620 sometimes its 640 etc etc

[Will_Restore]

is uncompressed size > 800 Gb ?

[marekkedzierski]

Maybe 800GB is only marketing in your case ? ;)

[J_H_Is_gone]

Verify what type you have your tape drives as.
As well as, what type you have the tapes as.
Maybe you have them set as a different tape and not as LTO4s?

[Ed_Wilts]

NetBackup, by default, will not start a fresh tape if there is space on another tape with the same retentions.  So you may be filling an existing tape before kicking over to another possibly partially-full tape.

> THe folder/data thats being backup up in this job is already compressed.

If this is using Windows file system compression, then the data will be expanded before written to tape.  This is Windows/NTFS doing it, not NetBackup.

[jc23]

Thanks for all the fast responses guys

@wrobbins, the files are precompressed before they get into the folder so the windows files system doesn't have anything to do with it.

@Marek Kedzierski Most of my other NB jobs fill the 1.6 TB fine

@J.Hinchcliffe The drives are HP LTo'4 inside a scalar library so they are not brand x drives. and the web interface sees them as LT04 drives.

@Ed Wilts  the files are precompressed before they get into the folder so the windows files system doesn't have anything to do with it


 

[Marianne]

What does 'Tape List' report (or bpmedialist -m <media-id>) report as 'Total Kb' written to the tape(s)?

[jc23]

Server Host =##############

 id     rl  images   allocated        last updated      density  kbytes restores
           vimages   expiration       last read         <------- STATUS ------->
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
000099   0     14   08/26/2010 06:00  08/28/2010 06:00   hcart   656398245     0
               14   09/04/2010 06:00        N/A         FULL
 

[jc23]

Like I said above, some of them are 65GB some 62GB some of them 64 etc.

 

[mph999 · Accepted solution]

I agree with Marek ...

"Check for hardware compression on drives. Maybe it's disabled ?
There is no tape capacity limit in NB, you can't set it to 650 GB. NB writes on tapes till the end and it's reported by tape drive (hardware)."

NBU will mark a tape Full when it receives notification of the logical end of tape.

What sort of data is it ?