Compressing data
I'm having an issue with backups overrunning the tape. I am using an HP Ultrium LTO-6 tape drive and tapes. The total I am trying to backup is around 3 Tb. I understand that with compression this should easily fit on an LTO-6 tape. However, the backup is ejecting the tape (I assume because the tape is full) before all the data is backed up. I'd like some advice on the compression settings within Acronis and how this works with the native compression of the tape drive itself.

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I was under the impression that Acronis did not support Hardware Compression
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Hello Keith,
Hardware compression is done by the tape drive itself regardless of the data source you provide to it.
In this way, any software that can write to tape supports hardware compression as long as the data is provided in a compressible format.
When backup software vendors talk about supporting HW compression, they usually mean the following:
- You can enable/disable the compression in the tape drive driver from the product UI
- Enabling the HW compression automatically disables the incompatible options (like software compression or sending encrypted data)
We don't do these automatically, which is why we don't claim 'support' for HW compression.
However, if you enable the HW compression yourself from the tape drive management software and are carefull about setting the backup plan options, it will work exactly as it should.
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