Tape prematurely set to full

There should be a lot of reasons on media layer. Try to check messages in dameon.raw before medium is marked full.

1 - It could be problem with OS driver, don’t use Windows native driver if you backup server is running on Windows, always use driver from tape vendor.

2 - Try to disable CDI in NMC device setting

3 – check if drives are in defferent zones than array to avoid hw resets send from arrays

4 – If running HP server try to stop services of all sw managing HW

5 – Could be HW problem on device, check if tapes are prematurely marked full on all tapes

6 – check cabeling

Regards

Lukas

Check daemon.raw there should be error message before marking full, than you can use net helpmsg command to translate error code, if tape is marked correctly, jsou should recive message reached pfysical end of tape… As far as I remember…

Regards

Lukas

Eivinda,

It would appear you have the capacity of the tape set to its higher value of 1600GB. Native an LTO 5 cartridge will take 800GB but with compression can go in advance of this – manufactures usually quote 2:1 compression rates so 800/1600GB

From your post it would appear you are getting slightly less than this but it will depend on the actual data and its “compressibility”. I do not think you have an issue here – you maybe just need to reset the tape capacity to the lower value.

Regards,

Bill Mason

Hi

This is LTO-5 which has 1500/3000 size

Here is a chart:

http://www-06.ibm.com/ibm/jp/apto/images/topic/lto/LTO_8GenChart_2010.png

Thanks

Oh, you are right, I didn’t read the numbers, usual real usable capacity of tapes asi 1.3x of their capacity without compression…

Regards

Lukas

Evinda,

Just confirming you have LTO 5 tape cartridges and not a previous LTO version like LTO4 and have upgraded your drives – just want to be sure. I apologize for the oversight in my previous post.

Regards,

Bill Mason

Hello

Thanks, will check the logs.

Bill: No worries, it's really my bad since I didn't specify LTO version in my original post.

Will update on findings

Thanks

Eivind Antonsen

eivinda,

Please try to disable scsi information in HP Management Agents.

Eivind,

Did you manage to make any progress with this?

Also when the drives are writing the data do you see speeds of close to 280MB/s (compressed rate) or are they closer to 140Mb/s (native rate)? Unless the drives are writing close to the 280Mb/s the drives will not compress the data therefore you will only see 1.5TB written to the tape. It is a common misconception that when hardware compression is used the data is always compressed regardless, this is not the case but hardware compression is more efficient than client side or software compression. This is not specific to LTO5 but is across the whole range of the generations and is shown on the chart you supplied but is often misinterpreted.

Regards,

Bill Mason

Is the problem solved?

I have made all the verifies as described above.

I am encountering the same problem with a backup made on tape Ultrium 5-SCSI.

The error is : NetWorker media (Warning) marked full prematurely.

I am encountering this error when I start  he backup, the tape is marked at full.

Such usually points to a specific isue with your setup which cannot be answered straight away. But I am in doubt that this is a NetWorker problem as he must rely on other preprequisites as drivers etc.

Follow Lucky85's advices. Also keep in mind that there are other tools to test the tape/tape drive:

  - NetWorker's tapeexer/tapeexercise tools for Windows/UNIX respectively.

  - OS tools like Windows backup or tar

  - HW vendor tools (for example HP tape tools)