Forum Discussion

akarelin's avatar
akarelin
Level 4
10 years ago

Can we use one tape cartridge in a circle?

We have Backup Exec 2014 SP2. Can we use one tape cartridge in a circle? I mean if a record is expired then the record will be overwritten by a newer record when the tape cartridge will be full.

 

2014
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    10 years ago
    No. You cannot just overwrite one backup set on a tape. Suppose you have 3 backup sets on one tape. You cannot just overwrite the oldest backup set and leave the remaining 2 backup sets on the tape. When a tape is overwritten, all the backup sets on the tape are gone. Also, when a job writes to the end of a tape, it cannot continue writing to the front of the tape. It would require another overwritable tape to continue.
  • AmolB's avatar
    AmolB
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    Yes you can, once the overwrite period expires the tape become eligible to be ovwerwritten.

    You should read below article for better understanding of ovewrite and append period.

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH5459

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    10 years ago
    No. You cannot just overwrite one backup set on a tape. Suppose you have 3 backup sets on one tape. You cannot just overwrite the oldest backup set and leave the remaining 2 backup sets on the tape. When a tape is overwritten, all the backup sets on the tape are gone. Also, when a job writes to the end of a tape, it cannot continue writing to the front of the tape. It would require another overwritable tape to continue.