Tape

"Wow, I remember the tape days. You guys still support it?" -Almost Everyone. Our answer: Absolutely!

While we won't claim that Tape Drives get better with age, we do know that the Price per TB and archiving capabilities of it far outweigh the potential downsides. In this guide, we will cover how to set up Tape Backups using Zmanda.

Prerequisites

As a reminder, the Zmanda Backup Server has two components: the Zmanda Management Console (GUI), and the Backup Servers.

These components may be installed on the same system or on different systems. In either case, connect the Tape Library to the system where the Backup Server is located.

The steps to do so may vary by manufacturer, so make sure to follow the instructions for your given device.

Steps

1. Make sure your device is properly connected. On the backup server command line, run:

lsscsi -g

Make sure that you see your tape device. In our case, we see both the tape drive and the tape library.

2. Login to the Zmanda Management Console and click Storage -> ADD STORAGE ->Tape Storage

3. From the dropdown, select the Backup Server where the tape drive is connected

4. Give the storage a Name

5. Select your Tape Changer from the drop-down. The Changer Path should match what you saw in Step 1

6. Enter the Native Tape Size. See the following table for the LTO Versions and corresponding native sizes.

LTO Version	Storage Capacity (Native)
LTO-1	100 GB
LTO-2	200 GB
LTO-3	400 GB
LTO-4	800 GB
LTO-5	1.5 TB
LTO-6	2.5 TB
LTO-7	6 TB
LTO-8	12 TB
LTO-9	18 TB
LTO-10	30 TB

Again, this is Native size - not compressed size. Use the Tape Size Abbr field to ensure that there are no decimal places in the Tape Size field. For example, if you use LTO-5, input 1500 GiB, not 1.5 TB.

7. Click the MTX / LSSCSI button in the bottom right. The output should match that of the following commands - substituting the appropriate sgX suffix where appropriate

//to match MT/MTX output
mtx -f /dev/sgX status

//to match LSSCSI output
lsscsi -g

8. If the output looks appropriate, click SAVE. The storage device will be added and you can proceed to create a backup set using the Tape Library as the storage target.

Tape backups require additional steps. For more information, click here