Re: Backup Problems!!!!!

Tech-Archive recommends: Speed Up your PC by fixing your registry

From: Eugene Tan (insights-[dropthis)
Date: 11/30/04 

Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:04:23 +0800

hi,

I believe this issue has to deal with how tapes and drives are managed;
although there may be some brands of tape drives which expose the device
with a drive letter so that it can be used as a direct access media.

You can't see the tape drive in Explorer because you're not supposed to
use this tool to store/manage a tape. You're supposed to use another
software which either provides its own driver and management or use a
RSM-aware software such as native Backup.

Starting with win2k, Microsoft uses Removable Storage Manager to handle
tape drives and libraries; this tech comes from Veritas. RSM has its own
database to track tapes, but the problem (to me anyway) is that only half
the software is provided - you need to shell out lots of $$$ for the real
deal.
There also isn't a lot of documentation, and what is avail is rather
cryptic,
esp. documentating what it can't do - the only way to figure is to try and
conclude it doesn't work, or learn from someone else. Among the things
I find unclear is where the catalog is stored and how another server/drive
reads a 'foreign' tape.

Conceptually, RSM is good which is why MS used it. It can also be really
flexible, so that you could have several tape drives all doing backup and
get performance scaling.

Some backup software disable RSM and use their own driver which may
be more consistent with what you're used to. Tapeware is one of them.
So you don't have to correct any 'problem', or you can get another backup
software (not the drive).

Cheers,
Eugene Tan

=====================
"cpme" <cpme@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FD22332D-7097-4CC9-B614-CF3BEC106600@microsoft.com...
> So Travan is garbage, I can accept that. But shouldn't I at least be able
> to
> SEE the drive under My Computer? I mean, the only way I even know it's
> there
> is I can see it under the device manager and it says that it's working
> properly. Is there any way to correct this problem without buying a whole
> new tape drive? By the way, thanks for all of your responses!

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