Incremental backup do not append to tape

Question

I have a bckup exec server with a single tape drive attached. I have configured full weekly and daily incremental backups ofr 3 servers. The full backups run succuessfully. However, the incremental backups are failing witht eh error that cannot find appendable media. The tape cartirdge has plenty free space and is assigned to media set "keep data for 4 weeks" by the first full backup job when it ran (before that it was scratch media). The append period is long enough and media properties shows it is appendable. Still the daily incremental jobs are failing saying no appendable media available!!!

And this is evaluation of veritas 16, and at this rate I might never buy if it causes so much pain to take backups!!

Anyone has any solution?

colin_weaver · Answer

Are the incremental jobs using the same media set as the full? (this is a requirement for append)

hardstone · Answer

yes they are. "keep data for 4 weeks" is used by all jobs. Append period of this media set default is 6 days but I have it set to 2 weeks. I even changed it to "infinite allow append" but no benefit.

colin_weaver · Answer

Ok so is your incremental job filling the remaining space on one tape and then asking for media (as if that happens you can ONLY append to 1st media used)
&nbsp;
Also are any jobs starting whilst others are running - as Media that is currently in use is NOT appendable whilst it is in use (even if it becomes available at the end of being used) and the decision of which media another job wants to use will be made near the start time for that job and if no appendable is available at that moment in time the job willl switch to looking for overwritable and not switch back

hardstone · Answer

I have said in the first post that tape cartridge has plenty of space, also incremental job fails immediately after starting....... so it's not appending anything at all to any tape.The media in the drive shows 470GB used out of 781GB. So it has 311GB free.There are 4 servers, each with weekly full and daily incremental. The 470GB that is used is the total of 4 weekly full jobs that ran successfullyThe 4 Incremental jobs should have no issue with available space. Each one of them should hardly need 10 GB space based on changed files as we don't have that many changes. Regardless of that it shouldn't fail based on space as plenty free space is available. Secondly as I said the job doesn't even write a asingle byte, it simply fails immediatley with error that cannot find appendable media.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

legaei · Answer

Set your append period to infinite. You can't use the same tape after you set an append period before the append period is over unless you blank it.So:1. get a new tape or scratch your current tape&nbsp;2. set append period to inifinite - allow append3. Let your tape hang out in scratch, you don't have to assign it to a pool

Forum Discussion

Incremental backup do not append to tape

5 Replies

Related Content

Incremental tape accidentally overwritten: restoring incremental backups?

WORM media append

Useless incremental backups?

Differential incremental running as full backup

Error - Not appendable (Media full)