Thanks Gil. I definitely can see your point about this software being designed for tapes, and not USB drives. I appreciate your advice and am going online to check out Synback SE.
James E Harvey Hanover Shoe Farms, Inc. M.I.S./Corresponding Officer Off: 717-637-8931 fax: 717-637-6766 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gil Hale Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 9:25 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [NF] Backup Exec 11d I have dealt with tape backup vendors trying to use a hard drive as a virtual tape drive before. They all miss the advantages in treating the disk as a random access device as opposed to a sequential access device like tape. I finally moved to SecondCopy, and then later to SyncBack SE (www.syncback.com). With both those inexpensive solutions there is the option to not needlessly back up a Source File if it exists on the target, and has not changed since the version already stored on the target. Hence, it is capable of a far more intelligent way of backing up in the logic itself when compared to tape backups. I set up paths for each day of the week, and only do a Full Backup once a week, and an intelligent differential backup the remaining days of the week. The reason I went from SecondCopy to SyncBack is because SyncBack supports Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS), so for local NTFS hard drives it can back up Open Files for XP, 2003 Server and I guess Vista (I do not yet have Vista running other than on a dual boot machine that I only use in XP mode). The last time I checked SecondCopy does not support VSS. I then use SyncBack once a week on a File Backup Manager Server to backup up the primary backup HDD units to a set of secondary HDD backup units (FreeAgent 750Gb SATA II/USB2, I use the eSATA II - FAST!). Then weekly I use BackupAssist to copy those secondary HDD backup units onto LTO3 tape media (3 sets I keep in constant rotation, one on site, one in a bank safe, one at a colleagues home office). It is a killer setup, and relatively inexpensive (LTO3 tape drive and media was the most costly part, followed by the duplicate set of backup HDD units). I do it because the cost of losing data, mine or that of a client, (much less all my programming code) would put me out of business. Another problem I found with the Disk Behaves Like Tape approaches is some external HDD units will "go to sleep" when not used for a while, and there is no practical way to alter that behavior. I know the Seagate FreeAgent HDD units do that. But, they wake up properly when accessed, and to date I have not lost any data with their firmware logic (knock on wood). The upside is they offer a 5 year warranty on their FreeAgent HDD units. So I put up with knowing the drives do spin down with non-use, by design. I bet the Disk Behaves Like Tape software is not tickling the target HDD correctly, and waking them up (?). That may also be something being done via Windows Power Options (I always turn off power management in MOS/BIOS and Windows, except for notebooks - can't trust the bastards to work properly.). Gil > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Harvey > Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 8:22 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [NF] Backup Exec 11d > > > Has anyone had experience with this software. > > We seem to be having nothing but problems getting this to run properly. > > We're trying to back up to external usb harddrives, but it is very > problematic. > > Two major issues are, first, the software wants to treat a usb harddrive > like tape so that you have to create a "space" reserved for each backup > session. We over estimate because we don't want to run out of tape/space > for each backup session. To me this seems stupid. Why can't you > just create > a folder and direct the software to place the backup files in that folder. > Second, the software consistently fails, with the error message that the > backup media is not available. This is not true as you can see the usb > drive with all its folders, files, etc. > > We have to safely remove the usb hardrive, shut it down, and > restart before > the Backup Exec software will acknowledge it is there. > > I'm about fed up and thinking about asking the reseller to take it back??? > > > > > James E Harvey > Hanover Shoe Farms, Inc. > M.I.S./Corresponding Officer > Off: 717-637-8931 > fax: 717-637-6766 > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
