Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 library usage

[mlopez]

We use FireStreamer with DMP 2010 to write to "tapes" that are actually files on external disks. Our library was configured by someone who left the company so I'm trying to understand why it is configured as it is. It has a single library with 150 tape drives and 160 slots. However, after loading media using a file map that contains 150 tapes and starting a detailed inventory, I only see 50 tape drives being used at any given time. So my questions are:

1- What determines how many tape drives DPM uses?

2- When the real media consists of files on a disk what criteria should be used to set the number of tape drives and slots?

Thanks in advance.


M.

[jsf]

1- What determines how many tape drives DPM uses?

DPM itself.

When the real media consists of files on a disk what criteria should be used to set the number of tape drives and slots?

You should contact Microsoft Support to discuss the best backup strategy for your environment. There is no backup logic in Firestreamer, and it makes no difference to it how many tapes or slots it's configured with. See What is the best backup strategy for my environment?.

I think that you don't need 150 tapes drives, unless you have very special requirements and environment. Our advice is that it's best to start with the default configuration of 5 tape drives and 200 storage slots, and change it only if you really need to. See also Advanced Configuration.