problems w/ exabyte VXA-2 tape drive - hardware or software?

Question

problems w/ exabyte VXA-2 tape drive - hardware or software?

I've got a dual 2 GHz G5 running Mac OS X Server 10.3.9.

Hooked to it, is an Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 u1 firewire tape drive and loader.

I'm using Dantz Retrospect 6.0.204 (downgraded from 6.0.212 at the advice of Dantz) as the backup software and had incredible problems. Any time I'd initiate any backup to tape (unless I was backing up to totally blank tapes using a new backup set), I'd get a "catalog out of sync" error.

Went through the support ringer with Dantz and determined that Retrospect was not at fault because we could sucessfully back up to other, non-firewire medium without this problem. Exabyte tech support could only tell me "try another computer", so...

I hooked the Exabyte drive up to another G5, this one running the regular client version of Tiger (10.2.4, i believe) and everything works perfectly.

We are not really in a position to upgrade the Server to Tiger at this point, but I'm wondering if upgrading to 10.4.x Server would solve this problem, or if it could be hardware-related.

I wonder about hardware because after quite a bit of searching, I can't seem to find any other internet postings about problems with this particular setup. Also, we've also had problems with this machine. It arrived DOA, had the logic board replaced by Apple, and has been generally unstable throughout its life.

Exabyte has acknowledged certain firewire problems in the past, and the releases of OS X Server 10.3.x claimed to solve firewire issues as well.

I'd like to know if anyone out there had the same problem using Server 10.3.9 and the Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 u1 Firewire loader.

Thanks for any and all help!

Posted on Aug 17, 2005 1:32 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 21, 2005 11:45 AM in response to Benjamin Running

Hey Benjamin,

Sorry your having such problems.

I don't have exactly the same setup but I do have a dual G4 running Server 10.3.8, and while I don't have an auto loader, I am using Exabyte VXA-2 for back ups.

For me, everything seems to be working just fine.

I do know that Exabyte has a Terminal Utility that you can use to check/update/change things on the tape drive, and I recall having to mess with it a few months back for some reason.

I'm sure Retrospect and Exabyte has been most helpful, but what causes "catalog out of sync" errors? I think it's when the date on the retrospect file is out of sync with the date on the tape. So what could possibly be creating these date differences?

Since you downgraded your version of Retrospect, did you remove all the old files first ? If not, it's possible that cleaning your system of all Retrospect files and starting over may help.

And for the record, I have a dual 2.0 G5 at home with several FW Devices connected to it... and usually have SOME problems getting everything up and running at the same time, so if you've got a ton of FW devices... just for grins... try disconnecting everything except your tape drive and see what happens.

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Answer 2

Sep 12, 2005 7:56 AM in response to Benjamin Running

"and has been generally unstable throughout its life"

I wouldn't dare running such a machine as a server.

G5 machines seem to be firewire "challenged" at least not performing as well as G4 machines "speedwise".

Having said that I also have had trouble with built-in firewire in a dual 1GHz G4 machine and had to install a PCI firewirecard in it.

We had a LaCie AIT-1 FW drive attatched and it wouldn't always "show up".
LaCie often blame Apple built-in firewire when their stuff malfunctions.

I have no experience of using Exabyte VXA-2 1x10 u1 drives with FW only SCSI.

You are running latest firmware on it?

Retrospect 6.0.212 is Tiger only.
Latest RDU now 6.6

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Answer 3

Dec 2, 2005 1:48 PM in response to Benjamin Running

I have a similar problem of long standing. My Dual 2GHz G5 cannot recognize my VXA-2 Firewire tape drive unless I reboot with the drive powered up. In that case; Retrospect, with the latest and greatest updates); the VXA-2 and everything else works like Gang Busters.

I have tried all the advertised Firewire magic nostrums of power-down, unplug, various wait times and startup sequences to no avail. I tried some chants and incantations but they did not help either; I've not tried demonic exocism yet.

I have found nothing useful so far in Retrospect or Exabyte forums; is this "just the way it is" with Firewire VXA tape drives? My SCSI VXA-1 exhibited the same behavior with my 400MHz B&W G3 PowerMac.

My two Firewire hard drives and a scanner all work flawlessly with Firewire and are hot-swappable as they should be.

Any clues?

Thanks,

Bill

Dual 2GHz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.3) Rtrospect 6.1 and VXa-2

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