Discussions related to exporting backups to tape and backing up directly to tape.
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yastt
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One tape library, two drives

Post by yastt »

We currently have the IBM TS3200 library with one LTO-6/SAS drive installed. We want to add a second, faster LTO-7 drive to this library, but this time with an FC interface. One of those drives is to be used for daily backups, and the other for data archiving. We use both GFS schema for archiving virtual machines and file to tape tasks for archiving data.

The tape server is a physical Windows 2008 R2 machine with two cards: SAS and FC. This server has FC access to two storage arrays, and the SAS interface here is used only for communication with the LTO6 drive. Veeam 9.5 was installed on a Windows 2019 virtual machine running in a VMWare 5.1 environment and also has FC access to all arrays. Communication between Veeam and tape server occurs over the LAN.

Question: Can Veeam handle simultaneous support of these two tape drives running on two different interfaces? What surprises should we prepare for?

Anticipating the questions: we are in the process of gradual migration to the current versions of Windows Server and VMWare, but it will take a few more months. Until then, we would like to solve the problem with the slow writing on the tapes.

Thank you.
HannesK
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Re: One tape library, two drives

Post by HannesK »

Hello,
two different drive generations only work with Veeam, if you partition the library. Then it looks like two libraries for Veeam and it works.

Best regards,
Hannes
yastt
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Re: One tape library, two drives

Post by yastt »

I understand. So we will also have to separate backup jobs and owned tapes between these two partitions. That shouldn't be a problem.

And will Windows 2008 R2 handle the IBM LTO-7 drive? And if not, can we have two tape servers: one for a SAS drive on an already running physical server, and the other for an FC drive on a Veeam server running Windows 2019? Will this configuration work?
HannesK
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Re: One tape library, two drives

Post by HannesK »

Hello,
I'm not an expert for ancient Windows versions, but I assume that it can work. I would throw 2008R2 out, as we plan to drop support for 2008R2 SP1 for Veeam infrastructure roles in V12.

Yes, you can have multiple tape servers running different Windows versions.

Best regards,
Hannes
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