Replaced tape drive and exchanger

[alphalan]

Hi,
Support ID: 01517700

Just had a failed tape drive (and associated robotics).
We are using VBR v9.5 Update 3a 9.5.0.1922.
We run a GFS backup on a Friday using the standard GFS Medial Pool.
VBR has successfully detected the new tape device.
As you can guess, this weekend's backup failed, with errors such as:
Synthetic full
No tape libraries available
No tape libraries available

The tapes in the media pool are assigned to the failed tape library.
How to I best move the tapes to the new library and get the GFS tape backup working again?
Thanks

[nielsengelen]

As you have already opened a case, it's best to work via them as else you will be impacting there work as well based on someone's finding here that MAY have worked for them but may not work for you.

[Dima P.]

Hello alphalan,

Open media pool properties and under Add Tapes > Manage make sure that new drive is listed under assigned devices. Hope it helps!

[pshute]

I have this exact same problem. I right clicked on the media pool name and went into Properties. Then I clicked on Tapes, then Manage, then added the new drive. I set it to Active mode.

Then I was able to do a test backup to a tape. But only that tape is listed under the new drive. The rest of the tapes in that pool say they're with the old offline tape library. Do I need to do anything about that? Or will they come across as they're used?

I'm reluctant to try deleting the old drive from the pool's properties in case I lose access to the tapes still listed under it.

[Dima P.]

Hello Peter,

Here is the step by step migration procedure. In the similar case we've concluded that if you delete the standalone drive the tapes 'linked' to the drive will be removed as well, that's why tape 're-import' is required. We are investigating the possibility of the fix (to re-assign tapes to another standalone drive without the need to reload those). Cheers!

[pshute]

Thanks, but I find those instructions a little confusing. Step 3 says to "Remove the old tape device from the media pools", and step 5 says "Remove the old tape device from Veeam Backup & Replication". Is either of those what you meant by "delete the standalone drive"? If so, won't the tapes be removed? So I shouldn't follow those instructions?

Note that this is a single tape standalone drive. If I put in a tape and run an inventory, it links that tape to the new drive. Should I be doing that to all of them? Or maybe I can just leave things as they are, and let them relink as they're used. I have a "weekly" pool that will all be used within a month, but I also have a "monthly" pool that only get used once for a backup, then not again for 4 years unless they're restored. Do I need to go through all those one by one if I want the old drive gone before 4 years? There are 48 of them.

Here are a couple of screenshots (not sure if they'll work):

[pshute]

I've just worked out I can right click on a drive in Libraries, and there's a rename option. That's allowed me to rename the old drive, which had the exact same name as the new one (IBM ULT3580-HH6). So now we can tell them apart easily.

[pshute]

I'm wondering if it's possible to "migrate" the old tapes to the new drive by changing database entries.

[Dima P.]

Hello Peter,

Sorry for the delay. I would not recommend editing the database without our support team (you can raise a case and they can assist). Regarding the original question - we are checking the procedure of standalone drive migration with QA folks. Based on what I've seen - it's required to load the tape to a new drive to change it's 'device owner' to make it visible under new drive in the UI. Remaining functionality and restore operations should work normally. For now you can leave old drive in the system as is and load the tapes to a new device when needed. I'll update this thread with new details once I got them. Cheers!

[pshute]

Yes, things are working fine, and tapes are changing across whenever they're used. My main concern is the opportunities for confusion in the future. In a few months, operators are going to start forgetting there was ever another drive, and some likely already don't. There's a chance someone might decide to "clean it up" one day. I include myself in that group.

We have about 50 tapes that will only ever go into the drive again if we need to do a restore from them, which is unlikely, or when we reuse them in about 4 years. By that time, we might have yet another replacement drive, and yet more mess on screen.

I don't see this as urgent, but I'd like to clean it up. Doing it manually means putting them in one by one and running an inventory, which means sitting in that room for a a few hours doing nothing else.

[Dima P.]

Peter,

Understood, thank you for the update! We are looking for a way to perform such cleanup to display previously recorded media correctly.

[pshute]

Today I "migrated" the rest of our old tapes to the new drive. The procedure was
- insert tape
- inventory
- wait for inventory success, then press eject
- repeat 40 times

Took about a minute per tape, so not so bad. I did some stretching exercises and squats in the server room while I waited for each tape, so now I am a little sore. When the last tape was done, the old tape drive vanished from the Veeam interface.

[Dima P.]

Hello Peter,

Glad you nailed it. We are still discussing how to make this process more user friendly, so thank you for sharing the updates in this thread. Cheers!