Supported Devices and Configuration

Veeam Backup & Replication supports Linear Tape-Open tape libraries starting from 3 generation (LTO3) or later:

• Physical libraries, standalone drives and virtual tape libraries.
• Partitions of the physical or virtual tape libraries presented to the Veeam backup server.

Affecting 3rd Party Tape Solutions

Veeam Backup & Replication does not support sharing tape devices with 3rd party tape-recording software. If you plan to run both Veeam Backup & Replication and 3rd party tape-recording software (for example, in your evaluation lab), consider that Veeam Backup & Replication by default will periodically lock the drive to perform rescan, preventing other software from recording.

To share a tape device, configure a partition of the tape library that will be used only by Veeam Backup & Replication.

Mind the following limitations:

• Do not connect partitions presented to the 3rd party tape software to a Veeam tape server.
• Do not install any 3rd party tape-recording software or software components on Veeam tape server.

  Industry Format

  Veeam Backup & Replication uses the MTF (Microsoft Tape Format) industry format to write data to tape.

  Note:

  Veeam Backup & Replication does not support using WORM (Write Once Read Many) tapes.

  Supported Connection Types

  You can connect the tape device directly or remotely.

  • Direct connection:
  • Fibre Channel (FC)
  • Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
  • SCSI
  • Remote connection:
  • iSCSI

  Data Block Size

  Drives use hardware dependent block sizes to read/write the tape data. Generally, the drives support a range of block sizes and report this range to Veeam Backup & Replication.

  If you use a tape library with multiple drives or a number of standalone drives, Veeam Backup & Replication uses a unified block size to write data to tapes. Veeam Backup & Replication collects the block size ranges reported by each drive, compares them and detects a range of block sizes that can be supported by all drives. This range is additionally limited by storage controllers settings used in your infrastructure. From this range, Veeam Backup & Replication supports only values divisible by 1024. You can check the resulting range of block sizes supported by Veeam Backup & Replication for a particular drive in the Drives properties. For details, see Working with Drives.

  Note:

  If you connect the tape devices via HBA, Veeam Backup & Replication uses the block size configured for the HBA.

  The block size is unified for:

  • All drives in one library (if the drives support different block sizes)
  • All standalone drives connected to one tape server.

  To write data to tape, Veeam Backup & Replication uses the maximum available block size from the supported range. To read data from tape, Veeam Backup & Replication requires that the tape is written with the block size from the supported range (shown in the drive properties).

  Note:

  Mind the block size range when working with the following tapes: Tapes with Veeam backups written by another tape library, Tapes with Veeam backups written on another tape server, Tapes written with other data transfer configuration settings, Tapes written on a 3rd party device. You can restore from tapes written with block size that match the block size range set for the tape device.

  Unknown Medium Changers

  Veeam supports medium changers that have no Microsoft Windows drivers available. Make sure that such device is recognized as an unknown medium changer in the Microsoft Device Manager list.

  It is recommended that you use tape devices with original equipment manufacturer (OEM) drivers.