Add device problems.

[SPUHPointer]

Hello,
I am trying startwind/starport demo solution for tape drive sharing solution before buying it. I see for starwind in demo version is said, that 2 clients ar permitted, so I installed the starwind and shared the tape drive. Problem is that at once with starport I can only conect from one location. From ohter computer i cannot connect to drive using starport. I says that "an error ocured during installation of device.".
Is it normal? I would like to test my backup solution, how it works, but with this I cannot test it out.???? What should I do to get tapedrive work on two machines????

[Val (staff)]

Hello,
I am trying startwind/starport demo solution for tape drive sharing solution before buying it. I see for starwind in demo version is said, that 2 clients ar permitted, so I installed the starwind and shared the tape drive. Problem is that at once with starport I can only conect from one location. From ohter computer i cannot connect to drive using starport. I says that "an error ocured during installation of device.".
Is it normal? I would like to test my backup solution, how it works, but with this I cannot test it out.???? What should I do to get tapedrive work on two machines????

Hi,

A simple way to access the tape drive from 2 PCs is to mount it only for the time needed to back up your data. And then disconnect from the device to allow it to be accessed by other initiators.

The other way demands the device to support SCSI RESERVE/RELEASE commands and additional device rules should be set in StarWind.conf.

By default all StarWind's devices are created for exclusive iSCSI access from a single initiator at a time.

To allow multiple initiators to mount the device simultaneously, you need edit your StarWind.conf file in a text editor and modify the tape device add string as follows:

If you tape device is added as 'add "\\.\Tape0"'
change the line to: add "\\.\Tape0" -share:"rw" -sessions:2

Save the config file and restart the StarWind Service.

This will allow the device to be accessed by 2 initiators as you wish.

[anton (staff)]

...however I don't think any tape drive would survive after concurrent accesses from two different tape backup applications

[SOHOuser]

Hello everyone

I got exactly the same Problem, but with a Harddrive.
I can mount everything from a remote computer, tape, images, cd-rom etc. but i couldnt manage to access the shared harddisk via StarPord, however i can clearly see the devicename and i can try to mount it. The error StarPort returns says:

"The following virtual device was installed:
no device description
An error occured during installation of the device.
Creation of the iSCSI device failed with all the addresses supplied by the server"

i tryed the -share:"rw" -sessions:2 but it didnt really work.

thanx for help.

Greets

[Val (staff)]

Hello everyone

I got exactly the same Problem, but with a Harddrive.
I can mount everything from a remote computer, tape, images, cd-rom etc. but i couldnt manage to access the shared harddisk via StarPord, however i can clearly see the devicename and i can try to mount it. The error StarPort returns says:

"The following virtual device was installed:
no device description
An error occured during installation of the device.
Creation of the iSCSI device failed with all the addresses supplied by the server"

i tryed the -share:"rw" -sessions:2 but it didnt really work.

thanx for help.

Greets

Hi,

1) Sharing a hard drive is safe only if a SAN filesystem is used or the drive is used in a clustering environment.
Otherwise your data definitely will be corrupted because the standard Windows filesystems do not support such a mode.

2) Exporting of a whole hard drive in RW mode with StarWind's SPTI is possible only if the drive is not a system or boot one, it does not store a swap file and nothing used files on it at the time.
(But you can export any hard drive in as ReadOnly)

3) If you need a shared hard drive to build a cluster you need an ImageFile volume with '-clustering:yes' set
Please read the following thread for more details.
http://rocketdivision.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=84

[SPUHPointer]

...however I don't think any tape drive would survive after concurrent accesses from two different tape backup applications

My plan is to use tape drive at the same time with one application. I use ntbackup, but there i see problems with tape idenitification after someone else has worte something on tape....currently iam researching this problem.
add "\\.\Tape0" -share:"rw" -sessions:2 -this helped to solve my first problem.

[Val (staff)]

...however I don't think any tape drive would survive after concurrent accesses from two different tape backup applications :-)

My plan is to use tape drive at the same time with one application. I use ntbackup, but there i see problems with tape idenitification after someone else has worte something on tape....currently iam researching this problem.
add "\\.\Tape0" -share:"rw" -sessions:2 -this helped to solve my first problem.

You could also try using the MS iSCSI initiator instead of our StarPort.
There were some issues with tapes in StarPort, so the MS initiator may be better for your purposes.

[vallery]

For sharing a hard drive between 2 or more initiators, you said a SAN file system is needed - is there one you recommend? Using Starwind is my first attept at iscsi and this kind of stuff. Is there another solution that is simple and inexpensive? Is clustering simple?

Thanks!

[anton (staff)]

1) We do recommend SFS from DataPlow. You can check it from www.dataplow.com

2) There is no simple and inexpensive solution for iSCSI. I guess StarWind is the most simple and the most acceptably priced.

3) Yes. Clustering is simple. Please read the manual and go ask questions if you'll have them.

For sharing a hard drive between 2 or more initiators, you said a SAN file system is needed - is there one you recommend? Using Starwind is my first attept at iscsi and this kind of stuff. Is there another solution that is simple and inexpensive? Is clustering simple?

Thanks!