We have several TL2000 tape loaders at remote sites used for backup. Periodically the long-running jobs will somewhat consistently fail with an E00084ED error in backup exec, indicating a communication error with the tape drive. These are accompanied in the event log by event ID 129 "Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort1, was issued", and event ID 11 "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\RaidPort1. ITDT diagnostics show no problems with the drive or communication.
Small jobs to tape work and verify, long jobs to disk work and verify, long jobs to take nearly always fail. In the past we have replaced cleaned drives with new cleaning cartridges, replaced entire tape drives, switched to brand new tapes, none of which had any effect. Only splitting the jobs up into smaller ones (< 12 hr run time including verify) stopped the failures, and this is becoming impractical.
The event log errors seem to point to something with the storage controller, a Dell 6Gbps SAS HBA. LSI cards and autoloaders seem to have these issues frequently, Microsoft has a trouobleshooting document :
that includes the following advice:
- Slow the transfer rate settings if the timeouts are associated with tape drives - using 5MBS transfer rate usually cures the timeouts.
Where would I "slow the transfer rate"? Are there any other troubleshooting steps I can take?
PowerEdge T610 server running Windows Server 2008r2, BE 2010, Dell 6Gbps SAS HBA, TL2000 autoloader with single LTO5 drive.