Backupexec tape compression

[djdos]

Hi - sorry if thread in wrong place

I have just put backupexec 11d on 1 of my servers at school. This was to replace v9, which stopped working with the finance updates in dec.

I have a older sony ati tape drive (35GB / 70GB compressed)

The backup is about 85 GB, although i can make smaller. But everytime i've tired to backup this up, it takes 3 tapes to backup.

Now i'm guessing maybe i would need 2, as it's over 70GB, But the tape's putting about 37GB on 1 before spitting it out.

My question is why / how is the compression not working on the drive?

I have gone into the backupexec / options / backup / compression type and set this to hardware (it aval, if not software) but have tried software + hardware setting, with no luck so far (i have checked settings of backup exec against some of my other schools, all settings are pretty much the same, so hopefully not something i've done wrong in setup)

The only thing worth mentioning is sometimes the tape drive not see the media in it. If i retension + erase the tape, it see's it, however the compression is still not kicking in. Have run backupexec + server 2003 updates.

Any ideas or suggestions to what i'm doing wrong? Are there any windows settings for compression etc?
(The tapes + drive are 3/4 years old now)

Thanks in advance........

[strawberry]

sometimes the compression is just poor, on a 100/200gb tape i got about 115gb. unless you've got music or images on the server it will not be able to compress data too much.

[LeMarchand]

Did you manage to get a good compression with v9? That's what we use and (presumably because many files are already compressed) it never seems to work too well.

85GB sounds like a huge backup (but I work in Primary schools). I'd be tempted to have a look at where it all is (i.e. is it teachers and students personal music/pics/video?) and run something like Doublekiller, as if your teachers are anything like mine there'll be 3 or 4 copies of the same (often huge) files dotted over the network.

[djdos]

Thanks, it used to backup before, we moved SIMS and some apps / printers over to a new server in september of last year. (wanted to remake dc, make new server dc, use older for SIMS, but the local secondary school who helped wouldn't touch this,only move sims (which didn't really help as the reason for getting a new server was the c:\ had 400mb free,1 year on nearly back with same prob)) The backup used to work, but never really commpressed much over 37GB (think 41GB at best)

The backup is large, but this is due to the fact they are more compitent with there ICT needs than all my other 6 schools put together! Most staff folders are at near 1GB, some (ICT co) nearer 5GB (although i think 1GB may be music?????)

By the time you've backed up c:\ + office files it's already about 45GB (add to that backup of ghost images /intranet /apps etc). I have spoke to staff about what they save, and we are going to go though it, remove what they don't need. (only there 1 day max per week so time issue)

I had wondered if commpresion was any good / or if the drives + tapes are old and knackered.

The server is geting old now, i'm expecting it to fail 1 day soon, and wanted to make sure it was backuping up regualy just incase!

Just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything stupid i was missing out or not ticking.

Thanks again....

[ahuxham]

Moved away from tapes personally, and now have 300GB+ worth of backups onto local drives.

On the tape front. I'd assume with general knowledge, that larger files limit compression. I 30GB single file database wont compress into much, but you'd get more compression from 30 x 1GB databases. Volume of single (not-easily-compressed) files can thwart the whole process.

(To get your files onto those 2 x tapes, it may be advisable to compress the files pre-backing up, which in turn would assure you have adequate space.)

[LeMarchand]

The backup used to work, but never really commpressed much over 37GB (think 41GB at best)

That compression ratio sounds about right (if not better than I tend to get!).

The backup is large, but this is due to the fact they are more compitent with there ICT needs than all my other 6 schools put together! Most staff folders are at near 1GB, some (ICT co) nearer 5GB (although i think 1GB may be music?????)

5GB!!! Again, maybe it's because I'm in Primary, but that sounds like their family pics and iTunes. I use jDisk report to get a nice graphical view of where the space is being used and have told all staff that if their personal folder is larger than 1GB it's not going on the backup tape.

By the time you've backed up c:\ + office files it's already about 45GB (add to that backup of ghost images /intranet /apps etc). I have spoke to staff about what they save, and we are going to go though it, remove what they don't need. (only there 1 day max per week so time issue)

If you have the tapes, you could back up stuff like apps and images that don't change so frequently on to different tapes.

I thought that I was going to be able to follow ahuxham in one of my schools when the tape drive got stuck, but when I was rooting around the server I accidentally pulled the power and the tape ejected on reboot . I'd already got the go-ahead to buy the drives, as well .

If your server looks on the way out, the drive idea is worth pitching: the drives can be used on any replacement server and aren't hugely expensive. (I don't know the price of tape drives, but I'd suspect that HDD backup may be cheaper).

[djdos]

I think i'm gonna schedule differant backups on alternative days.

day 1 users etc
day 2 drives\ apps etc
day 3 users etc
day 4 images etc
day 5 users etc

Never thought of that till the HDD backups got mentioned!

Thanks, I backup now everything once a week when there on tape (7 hours + 3 tapes later, whilst server in full use!!). An remote on every few days, backup onto a HDD. In some other schools my 160GB external HDD (and getting full) is the backupsince the v9 backup + FMS migration what really screwed me, was away with glandular fever when the migratrion happend. SIMS remote did the update for 3 schools I didn't get round to, but forget to mention to them that there backup wouldn't work.

Thanks for the mention of jdesk + Doublekiller, will run these before spend time with staff, pray it just the same stuff over + over again. lol.

Will be posting a few more, got a lot of work coming soon, thanks again for ideas.