Software compression 1

[ScotsLass]

Has anyone used the software compression feauture in Backup
Exec 8.5? The hardware compression box was checked when I
went into the Job Manager but there is no compression being
done on my backup tapes. therefore I need two tapes now in
order to complete the backup. My question is, would changing
it to Software compression mode do any harm and would I be
able to restore without any problems? Or are there any
other problems that I may encounter?

 

[mhiney]

You tape drive probably doesn't support hardware compression. By all means use software instead, the only problem you are likely to encounter is that if you try to restore using any other type of backup software it won't work.

 

[Rols]

What type of tape drive do you have?? What makes you think that you are getting no compression??

Let us know so we can give you some pointers

 

[steveot]

Agree with all above. The hardware compression is done by the tape device itself. Backup Exec just passes the command off to the tape device (hardware compression). There are technotes about this. I would goto the tape drive vendor site and upgrade the firmware. Also the utility to upgrade the firmware will usually allow you to change or check the hardware compression...if the drive supports it. You have to also take note if you backing up files (zip, jpg, etc) they are already compressed so there is not much more hardware or software compression can do. HP has tape tools software you can modifiy the firmware to check compression. Dell has a utility as well.

 

[ScotsLass]

I have a DELL Poweredge 2500 server with a Seagate V5
20/40GB DDS4 internal backup unit. I followed mhiney's
suggestion and used the software compression mode in
BackupExec 8.5. I had already called Dell and they told
me that the hardware did not support hardware compression.
I had read somewhere that when I did the software
compression it would show it to me but I cannot find
that anywhere. I had also checked the size of the
data backed up and it was the same, if not more, than
it always was.

 

[steveot]

Hmm I think 9.x is the only version of BE show the compression ration. Its in the verify usually.

 

[ScotsLass]

I finally did get the compression feature to work but it
is giving me a 1.0:1 ratio. Somehow, I think that this
is not doing me any good. Any comments, anyone?

 

[steveot]

Try running NTBACKUP and backup to disk or tape. See if you get the same results.

 

[mhiney]

The way Backup Exec reports it is that it shows the size of the source data being backed up on the source, rather than the size of it on the backup media. Try running a backup to disk job as a test and that should give you your compression ratio easily enough.