Backup Exec – Using RDX Drives

KB ID 0000578

Problem

While I like RDX drives, (they have advantages over magnetic tape), but they do have a drawback, throughput.

HP RDX Drive

As you can see the removable drive/cartridges are just 1TB SATA Drives in a protective jacket, with a “write protection switch” on them.

HP RDX Cassette

So they should be perfect as a backup medium, the problem is, the drive carrier itself runs off the USB bus, so they can’t run faster than 48MB a second (I’ve not seen a server that has USB 3 on it yet). HP literature says that its backup rate is 108GB an hour. However for a small business that can be more than acceptable. It’s advantage, if it keeps the client that wants to take his backups home with them on a “Tape” happy (Because that’s what they have always done).

So the other week I found myself with a shiny new RDX Drive and an old SBS 2003 Server running Backup Exec 11d.

Solution

Note: If you are running Backup Exec versions 10 or 11 you CANNOT perform backups with GRT. If you want this functionality then you need to upgrade to a newer version (GRT to RDX drive works fine with Backup Exec 2010 R3).

1. Once you have physically installed the drive and connected it to the servers internal USB interface, you should see the drive listed below disk drives.

HP RDX USB Drive in Device Manager

2. With an RDX Cartridge loaded it behaves just like a 1TB Drive (because that’s exactly what it is).

RDX Removeable Drive

3. To use the drive in Backup Exec you need to create a new “Removable Backup-to-Disk Folder”.

RDX Removable Backup to Disk Folder

4. Give the removable folder a sensible name, and I set the maximum size to 1023GB to make sure it can’t try and outgrow the drive.

Configure Removable Backup to Disk Folder

5. Once complete it will create “Media” in the removable folder that it names incrementally as it sees new cartridges, in the FLDR000001, FLDR000002, etc, format. Treat these the same as any other backup media, i.e. you can add them to media groups for different backup jobs.

Configure Removable Backup to Disk Folder

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

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Author: Migrated

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