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Force USB Drives to use Drive Letter X
Stoic Joker:
Not quite ... But I like the way you're thinking. ;)
Here's the thing:
The built-in Server 2008 backup software is absolutely brilliantly simple to setup and use ...(I fell in love with it imediatly)... Unfortunately (budget constraints) we're using a 2003 server because of the x64 hardware requirements for the new(er) versions of Exchange.
The primary PITA is Symantec's Backup Exec which is to stupid to pole for which mounted (to a folder) device is active within a specific backup media set. They're "working on it". This makes the only option to target a specific drive letter for all backups, and then swap the targets. Hence the requirement to have a set of 5 drives all claim to be Target X.
[rant]Symantec charges a friggin kings ransom for Backup Exec which is pathetic considering the flat-out broken half implemented features like this silly shit. How god damn hard is it to check the size of a freaking folder for christ sake?!? Ooh Size=0, next! Found a live one, start the backup. It really is just that fucking simple...but this randy bunch of greedy jack-offs can't quite seem to pull it off.
Count to 5 to get the active target for the nightly backup - Nope, can't do it - It is just too damn hard. But they can sure as hell count to $20,000 in a flash when they ring up you license fees for that busted ass piece of shit.[/rant]
(Hay Renegade, It works ... I feel much better now :D)
While subst would work - kind of... - It would require that there be 5 different daily scripts to drop and reassign the drive letter to that day's target (folder mounted) drive. And (here's the bad part), would also assume that the correct drive for that day is/was connected at the time the script ran. Eek!
Edvard:
Can drive letter assignment be scripted, and can you therefore put an autorun script in the root of the drives?
That way, they would auto-assign themselves as they were plugged in.
All internet searches keep pointing to USBDLM as THE solution, so I'm grabbing at straws...
Wait, this may be something: http://forums.techarena.in/windows-server-help/690830.htm
or this: http://www.2brightsparks.com/help/index.php?action=kb&article=12
Stoic Joker:
Can drive letter assignment be scripted, and can you therefore put an autorun script in the root of the drives?
That way, they would auto-assign themselves as they were plugged in.-Edvard (May 21, 2011, 01:31 AM)
--- End quote ---
Autorun is disabled and requires a user to be logged in, which is not really guarantee-able on a headless server.
All internet searches keep pointing to USBDLM as THE solution, so I'm grabbing at straws...
-Edvard (May 21, 2011, 01:31 AM)
--- End quote ---
That's what I keep running into also. I have access to the archive server I set this up on originally, and I've been trying to revers engineer what I did to it...But I'll be damned if I can find it.
There are no scheduled tasks, so it isn't firing a script repeatedly.
USBDLM is not installed or running.
There is no autorun scripts in the root of the drive.
The backup drive shows it's natively drive Z: in the DMC, so it hasn't been subst'es (confirmed by running subst to see nothing listed)
Wait, this may be something: http://forums.techarena.in/windows-server-help/690830.htm
or this: http://www.2brightsparks.com/help/index.php?action=kb&article=12-Edvard (May 21, 2011, 01:31 AM)
--- End quote ---
The first one is interesting, but is a reactive run it a loop and look for X script. I'm looking for a proactive do it once done solution. The 2nd one is for the DMC which (doesn't work for this) I'm already intimately familiar with.
While the USBDLM thing is tempting just to get out from under this project ... Using it would mean that if anyone inserted and/or left a ThumbDrive in the server it would be a coin toss as to which one the backup software would toast. e.g. Either the backup would fail (target not found) or it would "succeed" in destroying the contents of the ThumbDrive as the backup was sent to it. (Oh yeah) or both.
...I really don't want to go there...I much prefer my catastrophes one at a time. ;)
Only other Quick-N-Dirty option is/would be to move the CD-ROM out of the way so the external USB backup drives could just grab the then freed up D: Which is not my favorite solution as it's just a variation on the above boo-boo in waiting. Not to mention that drive F: is the network wide DFS root share drive for everything (One of the joys I inherited from my predecessor). So if the backup tried to run to that...We get a snake eating its tail kind of effect. (Not. A. Pretty. Picture.)
Edvard:
I realize my next suggestion is not ideal either, but...
Are there better backup solutions than Symantec's?
I know your company paid good money for it and the support, but this if this is as critical as "one slip and it's bye-bye data" then maybe something else needs to be done.
I know, more straws to grasp at...
Stoic Joker:
I realize my next suggestion is not ideal either, but...
Are there better backup solutions than Symantec's?
I know your company paid good money for it and the support, but this if this is as critical as "one slip and it's bye-bye data" then maybe something else needs to be done.
I know, more straws to grasp at...-Edvard (May 21, 2011, 11:57 AM)
--- End quote ---
(Much as I hate to throw the baby out with the bath water...At this point I'm half tempted to set the "baby" on fire, shoot it in the head, and then throw it under a train.)
Let's say it's crossed my mind (more than once). The question is what else will handle the Exchange logs commit operation? And it has to be able to play nice with AD & MSSQL also.
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