How can i change the Sequence of the Tape Drives in Veeam ?

[WinstonWolf]

Hello ,

Is it possible tho change the Sequence of the Tape Drives under Libary in Veeam ?

I have an MSL4048 with 3 Tape Drives . 2 Fibre Channel Drives and one SAS Drive .

The Drives in Veeam are numbered as followed :

Drive 1 : Fibre Channel Drive 1
Drive 2 : Fibre Channel Drive 2
Drive 3 : SAS Drive

What i want is to change Drive 1 with Drive 3 ( i want that the SAS Drive is the first Drive ) because i have better Backup Rates with the SAS Tape Drive .

The Plan is that i configure my Tape Jobs so that from the Sheduling Time the bigest Backup to Tape Jobs uses the SAS Drive and the smaller ones Begins later and therefore they choosen the Fibre Channel Drives .

In Veeam the first Tape Backup Job takes allways the Drive 1 when all three Drives are free and the Drive 2 and then Drive 3 .

AND PLEASE !!!!!
[FEATURE REQUEST ] Veeam Make it finally possible to choose in the Mediapool which Tape Drive is to use . Because many Users perhaps me uses differnet Tape Drives to Backup ( LTO7 and LTO5 mixed , SAS and Fibre Channel )

Thanks

[veremin]

Is it possible tho change the Sequence of the Tape Drives under Libary in Veeam ?

Nope, it is not.

Your requests make sense, we will keep an eye on the demand for this particular functionality.

However, the corresponding job that is supposed to run first might have a pre-job activity that will disable all drivers but one (SAS). Just an idea.

Thanks.

[WinstonWolf]

It sounds good .

Can you tell me how so an prejob should looks like ?

Thanks

[veremin]

I can describe the algorithm that should do the trick for you:

1) Get a library, using Get-VBRTapeLibrary commandlet. Assign result to a variable.
2) Get all drives present inside the library, using Get-VBRTapeDrive commandlet and the variable gotten at the first step.
3) Disable all drives, but needed one, using Disable-VBRTapeDrive commandlet and drives names as distinguishing factor.

Don't forget to re-enable drives either via post-job activity of the first job or via pre-job activity of the second or third job.

Thanks.

[WinstonWolf]

Perfekt Thanks

[veremin]

You're welcome. If you want to discuss scripting approach further or just need an assistance with it, feel free to create a new topic in the corresponding PowerShell subforum. Thanks.

[cgrebing]

Hi all,

we have the same problem here.
Customer has bought a new HPE MSL Library with LTO8 and we installed the old LTO6 drive as second drive to the library.
When backup to media pool with LTO6 media starts the tape is always inserted into drive1, which is the LTO8 drive. But this cannot write to LTO6 tape.
So we get an error and the job is aborted.
We configured these enable and disable drive Script as pre Job script but it would be better if VBR would check if the tape is compatible and the drive is able to write to it.
Or maybe we can select a dedicated drive at the media pool configuration.

Thanks

Christian

[RobTurk]

Have you considered partitioning the tape library in two sections? Many MSL libraries can do this. You end up with two smaller logical libraries, one for LTO-8 and one for LTO-6.
Possible drawback is that you need to decide upfront which drives and slots belong to which partition, but this will prevent wrong type of media being inserted in the wrong drive.
More information here: https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/do ... -c02904663

[cgrebing]

Hi Rob,

yes, we considered this but the customer wants to be flexible where to put the tapes and how many tapes of each type he wants to insert.
We tested the scripts today and it works like expected. before the tape is moved to the drive "wrong" drive is disabled and after the job finishes the drive is enabled again.

thank you

[Dima P.]

Hello Christian,

Customer has bought a new HPE MSL Library with LTO8 and we installed the old LTO6 drive as second drive to the library.

Out of curiosity, can you please share the reason why customer went with such setup? Are they migrating from lto6 to lto8? Thank you in advance!