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Data not compressing on tape backup

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by wine_by_the_glass

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Hello Everyone;
I am having trouble getting a full backup on tape. I am using a Seagate Tapestore drive and running Veritas Backup Exec 8.60.
I am able to get the backup to a backup folder, but for some reason, when I try to get a full backup on tape, it does not compress.
I have tried different settings such as-
?Hardware(otherwise use software)
?Software(otherwise use hardware)
?Software only

Non of these options seem to do the trick. I have checked and unchecked verify to see weather or not verify stopped the data from compressing, but nothing seems to work.

Thank you in advance

2 replies

by timwalsh

You don't mention your operating system, but I suspect that you are using one of the Windows NT family of OSes (NT/2000/XP). These OSes allow you to compress data on the hard drive. If this is the case and your data is already compressed, then neither the backup software nor hardware will compress it further.

Also, when trying to backup data compressed by the OS, you must use the uncompressed capacity of the data tape to determine number of tapes. 8GB of data compressed by the OS will not fit on a 4/8GB DDS tape (or Travan or any other format).

Hope this helps.

by wine_by_the_glass

Hello Tim;
Sorry I did not mention the OS or tape storage.
I am running Windows 2000 Server and the tapes are 10/20 Travan and I do not have any compression set within the OS.

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