Upgrading Tape Backup Units

You can upgrade a tape backup drives (or tape alternative) to fix problems with the operation or performance in three ways:

• Driver upgrades

• Firmware updates

• Hardware upgrades

The following sections discuss these methods.

Driver Upgrades

Even though most tape backup drives (except for so-called bare drives) include a CD or DVD that contains drivers for major operating systems, you should go to the drive vendor's website and check for updates even before you install the driver CD or DVD. This is a good idea for several reasons:

• If you are using a recently released operating system or service pack, the drivers included with the backup unit might not support your software. You should download and install updates if necessary.

• Even if the installation media supports your operating system, there might be bugs or shortcomings in the version supplied with the backup unit. The latest versions on the website should be used in place of older versions.

• Diagnostic utilities on the installation media might also have been replaced with newer versions, or they might not support your particular operating system. However, the website often has the drivers needed for less-common server operating systems.

Tip

Don't forget to check for backup software updates, even if you use the backup software supplied with some tape or tape alternative backup drives. As with the drivers, there might be better versions available.

Firmware Updates

Just as firmware updates improve a server's ability to work with newer processors and memory and to correct various other problems, firmware updates can also solve problems for users of tape backup drives and other backup hardware.

A backup hardware vendor's website has the latest firmware updates. Note that firmware updates are customized to the particular server operating system in use. For example, if you need to update the firmware for a tape backup, an autoloader, or a library connected to a Linux server, you should make sure you download and install the Linux version of the firmware.

You should not install any firmware update unless it solves specific problems that you have with your system. If a firmware update fails, your drive or other backup device must be serviced.

Hardware Upgrades

Hardware upgrades can help improve the performance of your tape backup or other backup device. This does not always mean an upgrade to the backup device itself. For example, upgrading to a faster SCSI host adapter in the server (for example, Ultra320 rather than Ultra160) can improve performance for many midrange and high-end tape backups, autoloaders, and libraries.

Most SCSI-based tape backups and autoloaders recommend, if not require, that the backup device be on a separate bus from other SCSI devices. If you're using the same SCSI bus to run the tape backup and other SCSI devices (such as the server drive), adding an additional SCSI host adapter (Ultra160 or Ultra320, in most cases) for use by the tape backup will boost performance even more.

If you use a tape autoloader that can handle 16 cartridges, but you only use 8, adding the additional hardware needed to handle another 8 cartridges can help make backups easier. With more cartridges online, you won't need to change them as often. You should upgrade the tape drive for faster and higher-capacity backups. If the autoloader didn't include a bar code reader initially, you should add one for easier organization of large backup sets.

A tape library upgrade can include installation of additional SCSI host adapters to partition the library into multiple logical libraries, replacing SCSI with Fibre Channel, and swapping slower, lower-capacity tape drives for faster, higher-capacity drives.

To find out what the upgrade options are for a particular tape drive, autoloader, or library, you should check the vendor's website for technical documents.