fsmap keeps disappearing

The technical support forum for Firestreamer (the virtual tape library).
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robp
Posts: 4
Joined: 15 Jun 2011, 19:36

Post by robp »

Running DPM 2012 R2 on a 2012 R2 physical server with 6 Tb of local backup storage, using (6) 4 Tb Seagate external drives for offsite, formatted as 180 15 Gb tapes.

Everything has been running fine, with the exception of an .fsmap file occasionally going missing.

Well, now it seems that every weekend, we bring a drive onsite, unlock the DPM door, go to Firestreamer, nothing to mount, look at the drive...and there is no .fsmap file.

So I wipe the drive, recreate the tapes, the .fsmap file is there and all is well.

Could there be a reason that the .fsmap file is disappearing? I get one backup on a drive and the next time I use the drive the .fsmap file has gone missing.

The only thing I can think of is I changed the retention on the external backup to less than a month because I only have room for one complete backup (about 2.5 Tb) per drive.

Can you have multiple weekly backups and have subsequent backups be incrementals? The data appears to be there, I see tapes with storage, just no way to mount them.

Is it possible to rebuild an .fsmap file from existing tapes?

Please advise.

Rob
jsf
Cristalink Support
Posts: 300
Joined: 29 Aug 2010, 09:03

Post by jsf »

You must have some problem with your drives or antivirus software. It's also possible that you don't "safe remove" your drives, and the fsmap file gets lost in the Windows cache. Firestreamer does not delete virtual tapes, let alone fsmap files, at all. fsmap is usually created by a user when they save the current layout. It is opened by Firestreamer in read only mode when the layout is loaded.

fsmap is a comma separated text file, see Media Map. The simplest way to recreate the fsmap file, assuming it contains all virtual tapes on a given drive, is as follows.
  1. Open Media Layout Editor.
  2. Remove all tapes, if any, from the current layout.
  3. Click Media, click Add Existing File Media, and then select all tapes (fsrm files) on the given drive.
  4. If necessary, specify the maximum size of the tapes as needed.
  5. Click File, click Save As, choose the fsmap file name and save the file.
  6. If necessary, click Load Media to apply the new layout, or close the editor to keep the previous layout.
Can you have multiple weekly backups and have subsequent backups be incrementals?
This has nothing to do with Firestreamer. It accepts any data DPM sends to it. If DPM allows the scenario you described, then yes.
The data appears to be there, I see tapes with storage, just no way to mount them.
Sorry, I don't understand your question. Did you mean you couldn't find the fsmap file? You can just load all tapes from the drive without a fsmap file, as described above (step 5 is optional). Though an existing fsmap file could save time.
Best regards,
John Smith
Cristalink Support
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