I am having a problem with a Dell PowerEdge 1800. Intel 8280 chipset.

Backup Exec is running a backup-to-disk folder backup job to an external, USB attached hard drives. When the backup was running to 2.5" drives, the USB bus would often lose the drives in the middle of the backup job. When the drives were switched to 3.5" drives with their own power sources, the backup jobs ran flawlessly.

The problem now is that the Safely Remove Hardware wizard can never disconnect the drives. It always says the drives are in use. I have checked there are no handles or locks on anything on the drives. There is no I/O activity on the drives.

It is not convenient to disconnect the drives without running the wizard because if it is done this way, Backup Exec will see the backup-to-disk folder as being offline even when the next backup drive is attached, and then the backup job will not run. To get the job to run, you have to reboot the server or restart all the Backup Exec services.

I have never run into this problem before. I have seen lots of similar set ups that work mostly without problems.

This particular box is a total pain.

The only thing I have found in doing research is that some people have encountered USB problems resulting from IRQ sharing in 1800 series servers. Updating the bios and updating/reloading drivers seems to resolve the problem.

Any thoughts or suggestions?


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