load/span all the media at one time?

The technical support forum for Firestreamer (the virtual tape library).
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bgardner2001
Posts: 2
Joined: 15 Mar 2011, 15:26

Post by bgardner2001 »

First, I am new to Filestreamer...
I am using DPM2010 in a 2 tier scenario. My onsite DPM server only back up to disk and stores for 64 days. My DPM server at our offsite (DR) Collo backs up the most critical data from the onsite backups across a 5mb site-to-siteVPN.
At the DR site, I have a 5tb DAS that stores these offsite backups to disk for 8 days and then I do a a full to tape once a week. I purchased an inexpensive 45tb ISCSI NAS device that consists of a main unit and 2 expansion units. This essentially gives me 3 ISCSI LUNS (3 mapped drives) on the DPM server. I used the FileStreamer instructions and created 150 68.2gb media for each LUN. Since this colo is offsite, I have no need to load/unload media and once this is full, I plan on just adding more NAS devices/media. Obviously, I don’t want to make 1 LUN across all 3 units.
I guess the question is can I just load/span all the media from all the luns at one time? I would like to avoid changing media.
jsf
Cristalink Support
Posts: 300
Joined: 29 Aug 2010, 09:03

Post by jsf »

Yes, you can load media into Firestreamer from different physical storage devices at the same time. The spanning is done by DPM, and for the latter all Firestreamer tapes look the same regardless of the actual physical location.
Best regards,
John Smith
Cristalink Support
bgardner2001
Posts: 2
Joined: 15 Mar 2011, 15:26

Post by bgardner2001 »

Is there a procedure for setting this up? In addition to the goal of automating the load/unload process, I think by loading all the 450 media and balancing the load between the three drives, this would give me higher a level of safety in the event of a hardware failure.

When I load the media from filestreamer, it looks like it replaces the 150 media. I’m pretty sure I’m not configuring this correctly. can I get some guidence on this?

Thanks,

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

Post by jsf »

When I load the media from filestreamer, it looks like it replaces the 150 media.
In the Media Layout Editor, click Media, then Create and Add File Media or Add Existing File Media to add the first 150 tapes. Repeat to add next 150 tapes, and so on. Click Load Media when done.
I think by loading all the 450 media and balancing the load between the three drives, this would give me higher a level of safety in the event of a hardware failure.
Both for Firestreamer and DPM, all 450 tapes will look the same. A tape library cannot instruct the backup software to use particular tapes in a specific order. You can however create three tape libraries and load 150 tapes into each one. Then you will have some control over what's going on in DPM. Also, you can try intermixing tapes in the media layout because DPM seems to use the storage slots sequentially beginning with the last one. For example:

Slot 1: Tape NAS 1.1
Slot 2: Tape NAS 2.1
Slot 3: Tape NAS 3.1
Slot 4: Tape NAS 1.2
Slot 5: Tape NAS 2.2
Slot 6: Tape NAS 3.2
Slot 7: Tape NAS 1.3
...and so on.

You can make the task easier by creating a media map file in a text editor instead of using the Media Layout Editor.

Please contact Microsoft Support to see if they can give better advice.
Best regards,
John Smith
Cristalink Support
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