Library with 2 types of LTO

[bertdhont]

Hello,

I have a tape library with 2 LTO drives. One is an LTO3, another is LTO6.
When I create a media pool, I can choose the tape library, but I can't choose the drive that should be used.

I have multiple media pools, some with LTO6 tapes, other with LTO3 tapes.
And multiple tape jobs: some have to write to LTO6, other to LTO3.

My question: will Veeam be so smart to use the LTO3 drive for the LTO3 tapes and the LTO6 drive for the LTO6 tapes?
If not, I guess the only workaround will be to create a script that runs before the tape job and disables the drive that should not be used...

[veremin]

No, there is no internal logic, so the script approach seems like a way to go. Thanks.

[alanbolte]

Also check if the library can be partitioned into two logical libraries.

[mike.r]

Same problem here.
Veeam always uses the first drive (if available), wich ends in a very high usage of drive one and a very low usage of drive two.
Partitioning the library is a solution, but makes changing tape jobs pretty unflexible.
Wouldn't it be nice, if we could assign a drive to a tape job or to a media set ?

[veremin]

Veeam always uses the first drive (if available), wich ends in a very high usage of drive one and a very low usage of drive two.

Not sure whether I'm totally follow you on that. Starting from version 9 you can leverage available drives in parallel by tweaking these settings. Thanks.

[mike.r]

I have seen this feature and it is not to bad, but there are two limitations:
1. This feature has no effect, if you backup one server with one big data folder, as we have ( sorry for that )
2. If you backup serveral server with this "parallel processing", you get (according to circumstances)
two "half filled" tapes instead of one, created with "normal processing".

[veremin]

1. So, you're using files to tape job to archive one big folder filled with numerous individual files, right? In this case, parallel processing won't be of any help.
2. That's by design. Two drives cannot write to one tape simultaneously. But playing with media set and overwrite settings, you can make media pool not close media set and leave half-written tapes appendable, so that, a job will add data to existing tape instead of using new one. Thanks.

[mike.r]

1. No, we backup one big server to a disk, and backup this disk backup to tape (as secondary target)
But you are right, the result is the same.

2. I understand the way it works and I know, we can not change that. I wouldn't even say this is an error. It just hurts a little bit to waste a half full tape.
Appending new jobs to old tapes is a way to weaken the problem, but as I am old fashioned in backup, I like to know where my data is (at least when it comes to tape backup)
and I like to have a clear separation of tape backups.
So (as I said) this more my problem, than a Veeam case.

[veremin]

Yep, you got correctly - there is not much we can do in the described scenario. Thanks.