Dell ML6010 Tape Library Driver Issues - Server 2008R2

[solidmf]

Greetings,

I'm trying to get Veeam B&R7 working with a brand new Dell ML6010 tape library connected to a Server 2008 R2 server, and running into some issues. I also attempted on a Server 2012 machine previously, but reverted to Server 2008 R2 hoping that I would have better luck.

Dell support tells me that Server 2008R2/2012 use the default "Unknown Medium Changer" driver for the ML6010, and there is no vendor driver. However, Veeam support tells me that the default "Unknown Medium Changer" driver is unsupported as a tape target with B&R7.

The tape driver and the Dell 6Gbps SAS driver both look fine in Device Manager. I have 32 tapes loaded in the Dell library, however Veeam only reports 1 empty tape.

Here's what I've tried so far:

• -Installed the ML6000 driver Dell ML6000 Tape Library as the medium changer from ftp://ftp.dell.com/Pages/Drivers/powervault-ml6010.html. The driver fails with the error: "The device cannot start. (Code 10)"
  -Installed the Dell provided tape driver
  -Updated the tape library to latest rev of firmware
  -Updated Veeam v7 with all the latest patches

Does anyone have any suggestions or know if the ML6010 library is supported / unsupported with Veeam currently?

[Dima P.]

Hello Marcus,
Thank you for the detailed explanation!

Could you, please, clarify: Veeam B&R does recognize only one tape or it recognizes all the loaded media however only one appear in Free media pool while others reside in the Unrecognized media pool? Any chance you enabled partitioning on your tape library?

[solidmf]

Thanks for the response!

I was able to backup and restore a few files successfully to a single tape on Server2012, which was before I filled up all tape slots. After I added the additional tapes, it wasn't able to recognize any free space.

I'm attaching screenies of exactly what I'm seeing in Veeam, device manager, and the config of the single partition on the ML6010. Let me know if there's a better way to attach pics:

ML6010 tapes installed / partition info: http://imgur.com/ZuMWqj8

Device Manager: http://imgur.com/vjustd2

Veeam Tape Library Detected: http://imgur.com/svugtnW

Veeam Tape Details: http://imgur.com/7mw3PHL

Inventory/Catalog of tape always returns within a few seconds reporting the tape is empty.

On the ML6010, there is a single partition with all tapes added to it, and a single tape used as a control path for that partition.

[Dima P.]

Marcus,
Thank you for the screenshots. And what about Free/Unrecognized media pools under Tape Library in Veeam B&R?

[solidmf]

Both are empty.

When I try to add a media pool and specify tapes, no available tapes show up in the list to add.

[Dima P.]

Marcus,
I am sorry, but such behavior is expected due the Unknown Medium Changer driver. I can’t confirm that this library is not supported but as long as it’s using Unknown Medium Changer definitely it would not work properly.

[Dima P.]

Marcus,
I asked QA to take a look at your case, they recommended to test the following drivers on your library. Please try to install them and let us know the results, thank you.

[Pope_Francis_Snowden]

Any solution for this yet?? I have the same setup and Windows 2008 R2 shows "Unknown Media Changer". Veeam does not see any tapes.

[veremin]

Hi,

What particularly drivers you're using? Have you already tried to test the drivers referenced by Dmitry?

Thanks.

[Pope_Francis_Snowden]

Nope. I doubt it will work. We are just going to use Backup Exec and wait until Veeam matures on tape support.

[Gostev]

That's too bad, because judging on the fact that there has been no updates to this topic for the past 4 months, these drivers did help everyone else...

[Dima P.]

Hello All,
Since users from other communities still have issues with this library and reference to this thread, wanted to leave a quick checklist:

1. Make sure you have the last available patch 4 (http://www.veeam.com/kb1891)
2. Make sure you have windows singed drivers installed in the system. For instance, if you see Unknown medium changer in device manager – that means you need to go to http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/ ... x?q=ML6000 (works in IE), download and install the appropriate driver for your OS.
3. After you did 1 and 2 restart your Veeam B&R server
4. You should be up and running. If not – please, open a support case, so we could drill the logs (Update this thread with case ID for future references).

Thank you.

[howartp]

As this post is 12 months old and nobody else has replied with any case IDs or updates - can I safely assume that the ML6010 (and ML6020/ML6030) are ok now?

I'm looking at these products.

Peter

[veremin]

You should be OK, providing the referenced drivers are installed. However, it never hurts to verify it in your environment, if possible.

[wilkins44]

We are getting really good results from our ML6010 and v7 (patch 4), and just recently added the 9U expansion module. Adding the EM brought us up to 6 LTO6 FC tape drives, which are all directly connected to a Brocade switch instead of the FC I/O card you can install on the ML6010. It has been partitioned to present 3 drives for our v7 B&R server and the other three are going to be used for our v8 instance that will come online later this month.

We are also using the latest drivers and firmware.

[howartp]

We are getting really good results from our ML6010 and v7 (patch 4), and just recently added the 9U expansion module. Adding the EM brought us up to 6 LTO6 FC tape drives, which are all directly connected to a Brocade switch instead of the FC I/O card you can install on the ML6010. It has been partitioned to present 3 drives for our v7 B&R server and the other three are going to be used for our v8 instance that will come online later this month.

We are also using the latest drivers and firmware.

Awesome, thanks very much - that's exactly what I'm planning as I've already got Brocade switches in there!

Peter

[Dima P.]

Peter,
Do not forget to get back to this topic once you finish your setup and share your tape job performance results