If you're considering BackupExec for a backup solution....

don't

 

k

 

I'll pass that on to the millions of enterprise customers already using it. Clearly their and our decision making process was flawed.

 

Is it at all possible you did it wrong? Or did you actually read the manual cover-to-cover and set up test scenarios to make sure you knew how to use the product?

 

yeah thats like saying dont use windows server for active directory

 

BackupExec when set up correctly runs flawless.

 

Not quite. I'd equate BackupExec to something like, say, Novell. Still a viable solution, but not necessarily the best for everyone.

Personally I prefer Acronis TrueImage... but that's just me.

 

Acronis TrueImage doesn't even come close to what BackupExec can do. Try backing up enterprise database servers using Acronis; it won't work too well.

That being said, for just backing up Joe Idiot's home computer, Backup Exec is way, way too powerful.

 

Been running it here for about 6 years without any issues

 

same here. Gotta be a DEU error.

 

That's a new one to me... Just looked it up

 

We used to use BackupExec, but scrapped it in favor of Tivoli.

 

just keep one thing in mind... all backup software sucks. i've used backup exec, hp's dataprotector (formerly omniback), veritas netbackup and emc's edm (the worst piece of shit ever). they all suck in their own way.

 

Truth. Add DPM and TSM to the list.

 

there new system recovery software is great for joe blow

 

damn, posted this when i was pissed the other night and didn't check back in on it. didn't realize it blew up.

it was a human mistake originally, but i feel like they should do a better job of allowing you to correct your mistakes.

someone had the tape in the wrong partition on the autoloader, the job comes up and says load some blank media. I move the media to the correct partition, try to run an inventory job, but the inventory job won't run (even with higher priority) because the job that has asked for new blank media is stuck in a state of "loading media".

The real bitch of it was that i couldn't just restart the job, because it's a duplicate of a backup to disk that cannot be started manually........

I'm sure they all have their issues, but damn this software pisses me off. I'm just put out with it.

That being said, any of you using a DataDomain box?

 

unfortunately i have read the manual cover to cover, and been to their training in Atlanta.

the issue was human error to begin with, but my issue is with the lack of ability to fix mistakes.

 

i disagree, there hasn't been a rock solid version since BE10 imo

 

We use trueimage for imaging workstations and a snapshot of a server, not for daily backups though.

 

it might've been a hardware issue though. i've seen it before where the drive or library was in an odd state which caused the process to hang. we used to have to run some commands against the drive at the command line to hopefully reset the drive to allow the process to continue or at least fail.

 

Add Novabackup.

Software is only as good as the hardware it operates.. and tape drives by all means aren't anything to write home about.

 

Well granted, if you're in THAT kind of environment TrueImage may not be the greatest; but for the environment I'm in (web hosting, mostly folks with a single web server needing to be backed up) it works well.

Of course, we also use R1Soft CDP for some things as well. Not bad in theory, but in practice not so great IMO.

 

You have to learn that almost all backup software regardless to what medium, tape, disk, virtual tape/disk, is an entire sequential process. none of it can be interrupted and if any step hiccups or gets confused, you may have to start the process again.

in the case of a drive in a loading state or thinks it's loading, sometimes it's best to force it offline so the software is aware of the new state of offline. then it will try to continue to another drive/partition.

Datadomain is the leader in 2nd tier inline deduplication. I am trying to get the oldies to look into this product, but they don't seem to be interested. I bet it will cut down their PB disk storage to a fraction.

 

Or simply restart the service to force the reset.

 

This is actually one of the biggest issues I have working with Backup Exec. In fact, it is such utter shit.. they included a menu item to start the backup exec services that fail to start at boot time.