Restore Tape to Disk

I guess you want to migrate your data from tape to disk as 'restoring to disk' is nothing else but a normal restore/recover process.

For migration, you must use the nsrstage command for each save set:     nsrstage -m -b dest_pool -S ssid

I will give this a try and let you know how it goes. Thanks for the tip.

From: bingo

Sent: August-09-11 2:54 PM

To: Rick Meister

Subject: New message: "Restore Tape to Disk"

EMC Community Network Restore Tape to

Disk

reply from bingo in NetWorker - View

the full discussion

Not much success. Can I actually clone a tape without the original database

to disk? I am doing a test of a customer and have there tapes and an

evaluation copy of networker.

From: bingo

Sent: August-09-11 2:54 PM

To: Rick Meister

Subject: New message: "Restore Tape to Disk"

EMC Community Network Restore Tape to

Disk

reply from bingo in NetWorker - View

the full discussion

If you haven't recovered the Networker server's database you will not be able to clone (stage) the savesets from tape to disk.

However, I was wondering if you could clarify your original problem as we may have gone off on a tangent.  You have asked:

I am trying to restore tape to disk so I can recover the tape using different software.  So far I have not been able to do this.

Can you clarify what you mean by this:

1. the application that backed up the data and the type of data it is (flat file, database etc)
2. the application you are using to recover the data with
3. whether or not you want to recover the data (meaning getting back your original data), or as Bingo interpreted, that you are copying your backup from a backup tape to a disk based medium (meaning your backup is simply moved)
4. the different software you plan to use to recover the data with

Having a clearer picture of what you are trying to do will help us advise you how to approach your problem and even if what you are doing is not possible. Generally speaking, the answers for 1,2 and 4 would be expected to be the same application.

Hi I am using networker. The tapes were made with networker. I am trying to recover or copy the tapes to disk so they can be backed up to comvault. I do not have the database they were created on as they were created at our customers site and I am doing this at our office

Sent from my iPhone

How else could it be done? They have about 400 dlt2 tapes made with networker that they want to transfer to dlt5 tapes using CommVault

Sent from my iPhone

Oh yes we do. Lol. So if a run the scanner command then clone the tape to disk it is possible?

Sent from my iPhone

If you don't have access to the bootstrap you are going to have to use the scanner command to recover the contents of the tape.   It seems counterproductive to recover a backup so you can back it up again but we know what customers can be like!

rmeister wrote: Oh yes we do.  Lol. So if a run the scanner command then clone the tape to disk it is possible? Sent from my iPhone

You don't have to clone - simply restore it to temp storage under some /bigdisk/nameoforigclient/date/ area for each saveset and then make backup with CV.  Even simpler, leave it as it is as you can do restores without license requirement with NW (unless customer wants to get rid of LTO2 tapes for good).

I would suggest seriously considering Hrvoje's last point.  Each tape may take a couple of hours of scanning to work (as well as the time to recover it), you could be talking about 6 months work for one person to move this data that may never be needed again.  Another thing to bear in mind that DLT2 tape drives are long since obsolete and as I have experienced in the past they are very hard to acquire now.  You may be better off conserving the one you have for the small possibility of future restores rather than hammering your remaining tape drive(s) with a huge number of recoveries.

Perhaps you should get the customer to review the number of restores they have had from this set of tapes over the last few years and the likelihood of needing to recover data from this period.  Being DLT2 I would expect this to be somewhere in the region of 10+ years old so there should be no legal compliance issues requiring this data  to be retained.

bingo wrote: 400 LTO2 tapes? - let's just assume 6 hrs to scan one, plus another 6hrs for the restore = 12 hrs for 1 tape or 2 tapes/day. that makes 200 mandays for the restore plus the time for the new backups. - You do not want to do that!

I would!   (he is doing it for his customer so he gets paid for all that time; I think scan per tape would be between 2-3 hours).

400 LTO2 tapes? - let's just assume 6 hrs to scan one, plus another 6hrs for the restore = 12 hrs for 1 tape or 2 tapes/day. that makes 200 mandays for the restore plus the time for the new backups. - You do not want to do that!

As already suggested, leaving the server for recoveries is the only reasonable decision.

Yes. It is customer driven so out of my hands. So I have a pretty good

idea of what to do. New Problem. My eval software of Networker has

expired. It has before and I simply uninstalled and reinastalled and all

was fine. This time I get an error saying cannot complete installation. I

have asked EMC for another eval copy but Have not heard anything back.

From: Hrvoje Crvelin

Sent: August-11-11 10:26 AM

To: Rick Meister

Subject: New message: "Restore Tape to Disk"

EMC Community Network Restore Tape to

Disk

reply from Hrvoje Crvelin in *

NetWorker* - View the full

discussion

There is no such thing like an eval copy - there are just (temporary) licenses. A license is valid for 45 days which you can extend to 60 days with the pseude-auth code 'grace'. You can do this 'forever' if you delete the NW databases.

If you do not want to delete the databases, you must have a license and later a valid auth code.

rmeister wrote: Yes.  It is customer driven so out of my hands.  So I have a pretty good idea of what to do.  New Problem.  My eval software of Networker has expired.  It has before and I simply uninstalled and reinastalled and all was fine.  This time I get an error saying cannot complete installation.  I have asked EMC for another eval copy but Have not heard anything back.

My understanding is you have nothing meaning you can just delete whole database.  Doing that is as strating from scratch.  Simple as that.  After that start scaning and restoring.  Install/reinstall won't help here (unless you delete comlete folder or specify that you are removing database too).  The thing that you get error where you can't complete the installation leads to believe something else went wrong, but you have pretty good idea what to do...