BE 2010 Not Using Scratch Media

But instead of using the four tapes in scratch media, BE is using tapes from another media set.

When BackupExec looks for overwriteable media, it wil select the one that has been in overwriteable status longest

if you have added/labeled the scratch volumes since the other media set tapes were written to, the scratch volumes will not be selected first

Is the problem job started before another job finishes using the tape?  When a job is using the tape, it is marked as not appendable.  When another job starts at this time and wants to append to the tape, it will not be able to find an appendable tape.  It will then switch to overwrite mode and wait.  When the first job ends and the tape is marked as appendable, the second job will not be able to switch back to append mode and will not be able to use the tape.

Make sure that your jobs do not overlap.

Yes, this true, but the job should take the tape from Scratch media before it starts using media sets other than the targeted media set.

No, there are two drives in the TS3200 and 4 LTO5 tapes in Scratch.  BE is not using any of the scratch media. 

And this is not behaviour I have observed with BE before.  I schedule all of my jobs to run at the same time and let BE handle the queue.  My experience is that BE will let the library unload the tape before the next job in the queue is run.  Then it will load the same tape back into the drive and continue with the next job.  This is what is happening on the Central Admin Server.

Maybe I should elaborate ...

The Managed Media Server and the tape library have been in service for about two months.  We just started using LTO5 tapes in this library (the other two libraries use LTO4).  The jobs that are causing the problem are Weekly and Monthly jobs.  The Weekly jobs target a media set that has an overwrite period of 8 weeks and the Monthly jobs target a media set with an overwrite period of 7 years (this is a service level requirement for our users).  Both media sets have an append period of 1 week. 

So for this media server and this library, as of yet there are no tapes that are overwritable or appendable in the targeted media sets for the Weekly or Monthly jobs.  So both sets of jobs require brand new scratch media at this time.

The problem is that the first two jobs of the week are taking media from my Daily and Archive media sets.  These then get moved to the targeted media sets and are used for the subsequent jobs that weekend.  The scratch media is never used.

Also, since the overwrite period of our Monthy media set is so long, the CAS also uses only brand new scratch media for every monthly backup.

According to our media management settings and this Symantec how to:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO22313

the server should be using the scratch media.

This would indeed be a desireable action, but it's not the way that BE is written

You might head over to the Ideas section and post this there.  If it gets enough  "Thumbs Up" it may be included in future releases

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/backup-and-recovery/ideas

According to http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO22313

Partial + Overwrite recyclable media first

Thanks for the heads up

They must have snuck that past me when I wasn't looking   (I've been using BE since v6)

Are these Tapes in scratch Mediaset factory new?

BE in actual versions don´t try to load media, which wasn´t loaded before although it is in scrach. I have to inventory the media before BE will use it.

The cause of this behavior seems to be the mediatype. Before inventory war rrun the mediatype is SCANNED after it should be LTOx or else.