One of our new servers has a HP DLT VS160 tape drive which should be capable of super fast speeds.

We are using Veritas Backup Exec 9.1 , and when doing backups across the network to another server I can get 320mb/min but from the same server to the tape drive I only get about 55mb/min which is dire.

I know the hardware is fine as the HP tape drive testing utility gets much higher speeds as it should do.

Any suggestions before I kill someone

Z, just to make sure I understand, you have a server A with the DLT drive attached to it.

If you do a copy/backup from a server B to DLT (server A), it's fine. But if you try and do a backup from server A to the DLT drive (i.e. not across a network from remote server), it's slow?

Nope , backup from server to disk on other server = fast

Backup from server to attached DLT = slow.

make sure that your antivirus isnt scanning the files

make sure that your antivirus isnt scanning the files

It isn't , but that would affect backups to disk as well as backups to tape

We had to rebuild our server about a month ago because Backup Exec went belly-up. As far as we could tell, a Windows update affected the way that Java applications ran, which effectively disabled Backup Exec. Rumour has it, it was because Bill Gates fell out with Bill Joy, who founded Sun Microsystems, and so Microsoft's Windows update was deliberately, er, tampered with. This is probably an Urban Myth, but notwithstanding, it was the update that killed Backup Exec. Having reinstalled all software, we have since discovered that installing the Java 2 Platform solves the problem regardless of this Windows update, so my first port of call would be here.

Hope this helps, otherwise you have my sympathies...

Finally tracked down the problem to the tape drivers.

It will only work with one particular set of Veritas supplied drivers. With either the HP , Microsoft , or other veritas drivers it runs badlye.

Now I'm back up to 560mb/min which is more like it.

Finally tracked down the problem to the tape drivers.

It will only work with one particular set of Veritas supplied drivers. With either the HP ' date=' Microsoft , or other veritas drivers it runs badlye.

Now I'm back up to 560mb/min which is more like it.[/quote']

Glad to hear it was a (relatively) simple fix!

Why can't the world run on Macs...?