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Trouble with HP LTO-6 Ultrium 6250
Hi Everyone,
I’m using an HP LTO-6 Ultrium 6250 on a Mac Pro OSX 10.7.5 with LTFS (HP StoreOpen). The SAS card is an Areca 1320-4i4x 8-port. Using Quantum Ultrium 6 tapes.
It’s been a bit of a nightmare to work with. First tried using Retrospect with it, and that piece of software was the biggest pile of garbage I’ve ever encountered. Now that I’m working with LTFS it’s a much simpler workflow, and because we don’t have a complex use for it, if I can get it working I’ll be perfectly happy with LTFS.
The issue is I’m getting an error whenever I try to copy over larger sized directories of files. We are a production company, so we have large files and folders. Anything that is larger than 10GB or so tends to cause an error that reads “The operation can’t be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -50). And this only happens when I’m copying *folders* full of files, instead of just individual files, which work fine.
Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? I have the latest drivers installed for the SATA card and the tape drive. It’s really driving me crazy, and I feel like this shouldn’t be rocket science. It’s about the simplest, most straightforward use of the drive imaginable.
Please help! 🙂
Thanks,
Eric -
4 Replies
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Seems like some advice from past threads is to buy a different card, like a “ATTO H680”.
Is that the very best next step I can take, or is there another solution that may work outside of replacing the card?
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Actually, it is rocket science :). But, you are correct in that it should just work. There are 3 items at play here –
10.7.5 – this was never truly tested for Finder <-> LTFS compatibility. We started heavy testing at 10.8.2 and never really stressed earlier versions of OS X.
Areca – definitely not currently compatible with tape, and LTFS especially, on Mac or Linux.
LTFS – we have seen the error code -50 in a lot of instances with users and even looking at the source code for the LTFS layer, we can’t truly determine the cause. In fact, on OS X systems, errno 50 indicates that the network is down…While any one of these might not be a dead end, combining all three is an invitation for disaster. If you think that LTFS will do the job for you, then you will need to replace (or add to) the Areca card with an ATTO H680 ExpressSAS HBA. I would also urge you to at least move to 10.8.5 if you must use LTFS.
If you want something that will work with your 10.7 system, assuming that you add the ATTO SAS HBA, our BRU PE and BRU Server products are fully compatible with both that version of OS X and your HP LTO-6 drive.
Tim
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Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.productionbackup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters! -
Hi Tim!
Thanks so much for all the helpful information.
I just ordered the ATTO H680 ExpressSAS HBA and will drop that in just as soon as I get it. And I’ll upgrade the OS.
Hopefully that will take care of business. I’m ready to get this thing working!
Thanks again,
Eric -
Eric,
Tim’s right about OSX 10.7…get away from that as soon as you can. OSX 10.9 is a better choice at the moment as 10.10 will soon be upon us!
To avoid folder and file naming issues, etc. it’s a good idea to use an application for the copying that checks and corrects errors. Not to mention the backside of archiving–speeding up the retrieval process.
Try the demos–there are several software solutions out there now at various price points (e.g. BRU, PreRollPost, YoYotta, etc.)
Dan
Offload with Confidence…
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