"Manual" restore of off-site tapes

Hi All,

This may be a trivial thing but so far I haven't found a solution I really like.

Here is the deal:

I want to have a couple of pools to perform monthly backups that are to be sent off-site (a safe box on a bank or similar). I just created the pools I need with one tape, defined and scheduled the backup (well, schedule of monthly backups is not automatic yet but according to Todd it soon will be, txs! :)

Once the backup finishes (it would be nice to receive email notices on demand, btw) that tape is supposed to be removed from the tape loader and sent to the bank. A new tape should then be labeled and added to the pool... oops.. the slot is still being used by the previous tape. If I 'delete' it and add a new one, the backup information will be removed from the backup database..

Ok, I can circumvent this by adding two tapes to the pool, one for the 'current' tape on the bank and another for the 'future' tape. When one goes, the other comes.. I retain old one which becomes the new 'future' and the 'future' becomes current.

Kinda does it.. but what if I loose everything in a disaster and the only thing I have is the bank tapes, a new identical tape loader and a brand new Open-e DSS server?

Can i, somehow, load a tape and manually dump everything in it to some share?

-Miguel

As far as I know, you can label the new tapes instead of adding 2 tapes each time..

In my previous job, which we also were using open-e, they guys were using the same method and they do not have any issues.

Can you label the new ones???? and see them as new tapes then backup to them?

Hum.. Yes I can label new ones, but it will replace the old one on the pool list (makes sense as I'm using the same slot)

But I think I know what you mean.. This wont delete the older backup information.. so when restoring I just have to make sure I load the correct tape on that slot, right?

(I will test this later, as the older tape out of the loader now....)

If this works it is a nice "hidden" feature. txs!

I tried this approach and it does not work for me.

I can label new tapes on the same slot, but I can't restore from an "old" tape.
I swaped the tapes on the same slot, ejected the current and loaded the "old" one and then I've setup a restore task.

However, the restore task fails without even trying to use it. How can i tell DSS to "rescan" the tape so that it can read the label?


Anyway, is there some way I can just restore ANY tape (as long as it was written by open-e) without having that backup information on the local database.

Imagine a scenario where I have to restore a tape backed up by another open-e on another site.

I know DSS is not a backup server, it is a storage server that also does backups. But it was this feature that made me opt by buying an Open-e server and not a plain storage server and a backup server apart.

I think the internal backup feature is a major differenciator from other products, and I hope that in time it will be improved. :)

I checked with the our storage guy and he told me to Configuration > Volume Manager >Vol Group and click rescan to recognize the new drive thats after swapping disk.

Remember you will need a separate backup task for each disk drive.

Hi SuperSan,

I believe that procedure is for detecting new disks. But my issue is with reading tapes (labels) that are no longer on the backup database or that never where.

Did you find a solution for this?

Unfortunately no..

And as far as I understood DSS internal backup does not support Scratch Media.

Also the "slot oriented" backup which forces you to have the restore tape in the same slot it was backed up is a major headache for off site backups.