5 1 0:Configuring Removable Media

Overview

SEP sesam allows you to configure different removable media, such as RDX drives and USB drives, as your storage device. RDX is a disk-based removable storage which is intended as a replacement of a tape storage. The RDX storage system offers reliable storage for backup, archiving, data sharing and disaster recovery. It is based on removable hard disk drives as well as solid state drives for storing large amounts of backup data.

RDX uses SATA (hardware interface for connecting drives to the computer) to connect the removable media in the drive and the USB port with external drive or SATA with internal drive to connect to the computer. Note that WORM (Write Once Read Many) media are also available.

Configuring removable media

To configure the RDX or USB drives, proceed as follows:

1. Create a new RDX or USB drive group.
2. Configure and add a new RDX or USB drive.
3. Create a new media pool for the RDX or USB drive.
4. If required, create a new media type.
5. Add media to a media pool.

Creating a new RDX or USB drive group

You have to create a new drive group for the removable drives (RDX or USB). From the Components -> Tapes -> Drives, click the New Drive Group button and create a new drive group, for example, RDX or USB.

Configuring and adding a new RDX or USB drive

Depending on your operating system, proceed to the relevant section below.

> Linux

> Windows

Linux

To enable SEP sesam to access the removable device, ensure that you have sufficient privileges with read and write access to the device file for the RDX or USB drive. By default, such access is granted only to the root user.

The procedure differs slightly depending on which drive you want to configure, RDX or USB.

• USB:
  Before you can configure the USB drive on Linux, you have to create a mountpoint in the Linux system:

 mkdir /media/usbdisk

Then you have to connect the USB drive to the system.

• RDX:
  Before you can configure the RDX drive on Linux, you have to check which device name is used for the RDX drive. If you attach the RDX drive to the Linux system, most distributions will automatically mount it (e.g., in /media).
• If this is not the case, check by the dmesg command, which device is used for the RDX drive (usually /dev/sdXY).
• It is important that each time you change the RDX drive, it is detected with the same device name. You can detect it with the udev rule. For details, see About udev rules.
• It is also recommended to format the inserted RDX tapes with a common Linux file system (ext3/reiserfs/xfs).

After you have created the drive group and connected your drive to the server, add it to the drive group as follows.

1. From the Components -> Tapes -> Drives, select the RDX or USB drive group and click the New Drive button. The New Drive window opens. Specify a drive name, type, and path for removable media – see device name of your drive above.
2. Under the Drive tab, specify the following options:
• Drive number is automatically assigned
• Drive name: Optionally, enter a drive name, for example, Drive_7.
• Drive type: From the drop-down list, select DISK_CHNG.
• Loader: Leave empty, or clear the selection in the drop-down list.
• Device server: Select your backup server or the system to which the drive is attached.
• Drive group: Select the relevant drive group you configured earlier (RDX or USB).
• Path for removable media: Enter the volume name of the DISK_CHNG media with the directory.
  In our example, for the RDX drive enter /media/rdx-mountpoint
  or
  for the USB drive enter mkdir /media/usbdisk.




3. Switch to the Options tab and proceed as follows:
• Device path: Mount point where the media will be mounted.
• Auto unload: Yes
• Mount command: mount
• Umount command: umount
• Eject command: eject

	Note
	Skip this step if the dynamic mount function should not be used for the USB drive.




4. Click OK to add a new drive.

Windows

After you have created the drive group and connected your drive to the server, add it to the drive group as follows.

1. From the Components -> Tapes -> Drives, select the RDX or USB drive group and click the New Drive button. The New drive window opens.
2. Under the Drive tab, specify the following options:
• Drive number: will be automatically assigned
• Drive name: Optionally, enter a drive name, for example, Drive_50.
• Drive type: From the drop-down list, select DISK_CHNG.
• Loader: Leave empty, or clear the selection in the drop-down list.
• Device server: Select your backup server or the system to which the drive is attached.
• Drive group: Select the relevant drive group you configured earlier (RDX or USB).
• Path for removable media: Enter the volume name of the DISK_CHNG media with the directory. In our example, enter E:/SESAM-DISK for the RDX or USB drive.

3. Switch to the Options tab. Specify the drive letter for the Device path and sm_eject_media for the Eject command, as shown in the screenshot.
   
   
4. Click OK to add a new drive.

Creating a new media pool for the RDX or USB drive

After you have successfully created a drive, create a new media pool.

From Components -> Media Pools, click the New Media Pool button. In the New Media Pool window specify the name of the pool (e.g., RDX_pool or USB_pool), select the relevant RDX or USB drive group and specify the retention time. For details, see Automatic Retention (EOL) Management.

Create a new media type (if required)

Check under Configuration -> Media Types if there is a media type with sufficient capacity for your DISK_CHNG drive type (for example, DISK-RESERVE_1GB, DISK_5000, DISK_100000, etc.), as shown in the screenshot. Negative capacity values (e.g., DISK-RESERVE_1GB with the value -1.0) mean that the entire storage area of the medium, minus the specified size, is used.

If it does not exist, create it by clicking New in the New Media Type window and specify the options as shown in the screenshot.

Adding media to a media pool

Add your first RDX or USB media to the RDX or USB media pool. You have to repeat this step for all removable media.

	Note
	On Windows, the directory specified as the Path for removable media has to exist on the media before you add it to the media pool. If the directory does not exist, you CANNOT create a medium!

From the Components -> Media Pools, right-click the previously created media pool (RDX_pool or USB_pool) and click the New Media button. In the Adding a New Media window, specify the relevant Media Pool, Drive, Type, etc., as shown in the screenshot for the RDX drive. Note that in the case of the USB disks, you have to select the Overwrite option.

	Note
	If you are unable to add new media, check the daily log under Logging -> Day Log on the SEP sesam Server for possible errors, see Day Log. As of 4.4.3 Beefalo V2, you can also check your system logs online via the Web UI. For details, see SEP sesam Web UI.

See also

Drives – Media pools – Automatic Retention (EOL) Management – Media

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