Veritas Backup Exec Problem

UKG · 05-02-2006, 05:52 AM

I have a problem with an older version of BE (8.6) It appears the software is not reading the tape fully and the job is failing to complete half way through. The tapes are AIT2 50GB nativ and 130GB compressed. The backup will go as far as 67GB of data before refusing to write anymore data to the tape. This is happening for daily and weekly backups (although both are currently running as full backup's at the moment) we have a mon / wed tue / thur tape which should expire each day so it can be fully overwritten, but it seems as though this is not the case for some reason.

The backup job log shows the error: 'The media provided to continue the backup already contains data from one or more sets created during this operation. The operation can not be continued.'

Previously we were running BE v 10.0 but problems with the SQL agent on the server prevented this from working and it was removed. A new server is going to be put in place shortly with BE 10.0 anyway but just wanted to find out what the cause of this is (as it used to be fine running BE 10.0)

It's a Win 2k Server running Exchange 2k.

UKG · 05-02-2006, 09:11 AM

This document list's the error message:http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/235151.htm the solution to overwrite all files is already enabled, which is why I think it's something else...bear in mind this is with using brand new tapes not old ones.

Aoconnell3910 · 05-25-2006, 12:02 PM

I have seen this particular problem before as well. It is not the tape drive or the software, I imagine what is happening is the tape is full. The native capacity of your tape drive is 50 GB, you are hitting 67 GB and it is moving on to the next tape, but the tape in the drive is the one it just wrote to. It knows not to overwrite the tape in the drive so in it's own way it is asking for a new tape to finish writing the job to. If the data has a lot of graphics, or uncompressible information this is common, I rarely see the full advertised capacity reached on a tape, it seems that the compression values they use to comput the "theoretical" capacity of their tapes is very optimistic.

UKG · 05-25-2006, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aoconnell3910

I have seen this particular problem before as well. It is not the tape drive or the software, I imagine what is happening is the tape is full. The native capacity of your tape drive is 50 GB, you are hitting 67 GB and it is moving on to the next tape, but the tape in the drive is the one it just wrote to. It knows not to overwrite the tape in the drive so in it's own way it is asking for a new tape to finish writing the job to. If the data has a lot of graphics, or uncompressible information this is common, I rarely see the full advertised capacity reached on a tape, it seems that the compression values they use to comput the "theoretical" capacity of their tapes is very optimistic.

Hi,

Thanks for that, it's been mentioned that it's likely the tape filling up, i just can't understand why it didn't do this previously on the full backup. It's unlikely data has increased that much in the last couple months. We will shortly be changing the server and also upgrading to a larger capacity ati3 tape drive and media, let's hope this solves the problem.

Toasty_One · 12-04-2007, 10:27 AM

I upgraded to Symantec Backup Exec 10d which is a free upgrade from 10.0. This solved a lot of issues I had with not detecting available drives or media between jobs. You can download it from Symantec or I can post the links for you.
You need to completely remove the tape drives and or libraries from veritas before the upgrade. Then do the upgrade, the latest service pack, and the latest tape driver upgrade. You will find that you will have a backup solution with a brand new attitude. Everything seemed to start working the way it was advertised.

Let me know.

05-02-2006, 05:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
UKG Registered User Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 84 OS: Win XP	Veritas Backup Exec Problem I have a problem with an older version of BE (8.6) It appears the software is not reading the tape fully and the job is failing to complete half way through. The tapes are AIT2 50GB nativ and 130GB compressed. The backup will go as far as 67GB of data before refusing to write anymore data to the tape. This is happening for daily and weekly backups (although both are currently running as full backup's at the moment) we have a mon / wed tue / thur tape which should expire each day so it can be fully overwritten, but it seems as though this is not the case for some reason. The backup job log shows the error: 'The media provided to continue the backup already contains data from one or more sets created during this operation. The operation can not be continued.' Previously we were running BE v 10.0 but problems with the SQL agent on the server prevented this from working and it was removed. A new server is going to be put in place shortly with BE 10.0 anyway but just wanted to find out what the cause of this is (as it used to be fine running BE 10.0) It's a Win 2k Server running Exchange 2k.

05-02-2006, 09:11 AM	#2 (permalink)
UKG Registered User Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 84 OS: Win XP	This document list's the error message:http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/235151.htm the solution to overwrite all files is already enabled, which is why I think it's something else...bear in mind this is with using brand new tapes not old ones. Last edited by UKG; 05-02-2006 at 09:13 AM.

05-25-2006, 12:02 PM	#3 (permalink)
Aoconnell3910 Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 1 OS: xp	Tape problem. I have seen this particular problem before as well. It is not the tape drive or the software, I imagine what is happening is the tape is full. The native capacity of your tape drive is 50 GB, you are hitting 67 GB and it is moving on to the next tape, but the tape in the drive is the one it just wrote to. It knows not to overwrite the tape in the drive so in it's own way it is asking for a new tape to finish writing the job to. If the data has a lot of graphics, or uncompressible information this is common, I rarely see the full advertised capacity reached on a tape, it seems that the compression values they use to comput the "theoretical" capacity of their tapes is very optimistic.

12-04-2007, 10:27 AM	#5 (permalink)
Toasty_One Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 8 OS: xp	Re: Veritas Backup Exec Problem I upgraded to Symantec Backup Exec 10d which is a free upgrade from 10.0. This solved a lot of issues I had with not detecting available drives or media between jobs. You can download it from Symantec or I can post the links for you. You need to completely remove the tape drives and or libraries from veritas before the upgrade. Then do the upgrade, the latest service pack, and the latest tape driver upgrade. You will find that you will have a backup solution with a brand new attitude. Everything seemed to start working the way it was advertised. Let me know.