exec backup tapes full?

one of the companys servers we oversee has backup exec 2012, There using tapes to back everything up. I am seeing some that say tapes are full. I am also seeing this error

Job cancellation:

The job was automatically canceled because it exceeded the jobs maximum configured runtime.

I was just curious if anyone know a simple way to clear space on each of the tapes?

Thanks,

James

It is set for a nightly backup Mon-Friday. 9pm. If i set the "when this job begins" to Overwrite media will it erase the tape and start over? Because the tapes are full. I just want to clear space on them i dont want a seperate media set to erase them.

@ pkh I read your response. That is why i am trying to clear space on the tapes. They have a tape for each day. How can i just clear space on each individually?

I attached another screen shot

@PKH I cannot seem to figure out how to clear space on these tapes but here is a picture of the media sets.

I want to manually delete files on each tape so the tapes will run again,

Thanks guys

15 Replies

Ananya_Bhattach
Level 5
12 years ago
Please refer to http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH87479 for the error message
affscene
Level 3
12 years ago
yes i checked this. It set to 10 hours. The backups are canceling after about 22 hours. Does not seem right. So you think i should increase the time to 22 hours? Just seems weird it was not doing this in the past .theres also a few places showing warnings that the backup is full. Is there a easy way to clear media on the tapes?
Ananya_Bhattach
Level 5
12 years ago
You can use media sets to control the append and overwrite periods for your tapes. Simply associate the tapes with these media sets and it should work.

Here are a list of articles you will need to do this:

Creating media sets for tape and disk cartridge media

Media set properties

and

Best practices for Backup Exec 2012 tape and disk cartridge media management
Ananya_Bhattach
Level 5
12 years ago
Yes please increase the time window and retry
pkh
Moderator
12 years ago
If you forget something, do edit your previous post and add it in. Don't use multiple posts
pkh
Moderator
12 years ago
The job cancellation is a symptom, but not the cause, of your problem. Most probably your job requires an overwritable tape and is unable to get it. It issued an alert asking you to insert an overwritable tape, but there was no response and it waited until it got cancelled by the time limit. Unless you provide it with an overwritable tape, increasing the time limit will not solve the problem.

Make sure that you have sufficient overwritable tapes BEFORE the start of your job. Also, note that BE can only append to the first tape. For the second and subsequent tapes, BE requires overwritable tapes.
pkh
Moderator
12 years ago
To utilize the maximum capacity of the tape you should specify overwrite in your job. This is the way you "clear" space on tapes. However, you still have to make sure that one tape is sufficient for your job. Otherwise, you need to provide more overwritable tapes.
affscene
Level 3
12 years ago
What do you think? I added more to the original post. I want to erase data off the drives so it has room to write when i start the next nightly backup
pkh
Moderator
12 years ago
See my answer below
affscene
Level 3
12 years ago
Will that work by checking the box overwrite media above in nightly properties?