I too am currently trying to work out duplicating tapes using more than two
drives.
I've been fooling around with scripts to keep more than one duplication active.
Basically write a file.... start a duplication....when the duplication finishes
I delete the file.
By checking for the existence of the file(s) you can keep more than one
bpduplicate running

However, complexity arises with multiplexing! It is possible to have
duplications that are sitting idle waiting for a tape to become free.
So.... I looked into using the Bidfile option (using an image list built from
bpimagelist) to structure the duplications. This way I can continue to use
multiplexing, but structure duplications so they are not fighting for tapes.
This last bit however is still theory.

PS.... There is also a problem with mpx and TIR where sometimes the duplications
will fail. It's listed in the 645 patch readme file.






|--------+------------------------->
|        |          Tim McMurphy   |
|        |          <Tim.McMurphy@t|
|        |          elus.com>      |
|        |                         |
|        |          04/23/01 11:34 |
|        |          AM             |
|        |                         |
|--------+------------------------->
  >----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |                                                                            |
  |     To:     veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu                        
      |
  |     cc:     (bcc: Khris K. Adams/CA-Canada/3M/US)                          |
  |     Subject:     [Veritas-bu] speeding up duplications                     |
  >----------------------------------------------------------------------------|





At this site we have a lot of duplications done (all the weekly fulls, every
week).

This ties up 2 drives for 25 hours currently. We have an eight drive system
(L700).

I have all the bpduplicate scripts (many thanks to those who wrote and
posted them) and was wondering what strategy could be used to speed up the
duplication? Can 4 or all 8 drives be used? We currently have 11 DLTs used
to duplicate the fulls.

Any ideas?

Thanks
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