Tapes Changing Media Sets

You got the global setting right.

The job properties should also be Append to media, overwrite if no appendable media is available.

Still not working? It sounds like you might be manually dragging tapes into the media sets? This could be causing you some problems. If you can, perform a quick erase on all tapes in the library for the affected media set prior to the next backup.

If you're trying to gain better control over what tapes get used for certain jobs then consider partitioning the library into several sections, and define jobs to just those partitioned sections.

I do have the job properties set to Append to media, overwrite if no appendable media is available.

And yes, it is still not working.

I am manually dragging tapes to the media sets after I do a quick format on them. How else should I add tapes to media sets?

I'm not sure how to partition the library into several sections. I rotate the tapes each night, so that is another factor to consider.

I would do the quick format and then let backupexec assign the media sets when the job starts.

If the tapes have exceeded the overwrite protection period by the time they are rotated back into the library- you shouldn't have to quick format them (would still need to do Inventory or Scan)

It may be that I don't understand what you are trying to solve: Is it A.) that the backups don't work because they can't find tapes to use. Or is it B.) That the backups are not using the tapes that you want them to use for the job?

Problem A.) is a media set / job definition problem.
Problem B.) is a partitioning / job defintion problem.

The problem is the backup jobs will not use the tapes I want them to use even though I create media sets and configure the backup jobs to use specific media sets. Backup job #1 that I setup to use media set #1 ends up using a tape in media set #2, etc. Since my problem is "B", what do I need to do?

what is the overwrite and append times of media set #1?
what are the times for media set #2?

If you left all the tapes scratch (not manually moving them into media sets) how does this affect your tape rotation?

Media set #1

Overwrite: None
Append: Infinite, Allow Append

Media Set # 2

Overwrite: None
Append: Infinite, Allow Append

I have experienced same problem with library. One time I am told to use overwrite scratch first and then it is changed again by support. I am not very happy with this product with Libraries.

This week it would not pull any media and cancelled the job because it wanted to tell me I would need new media soon. This media only used 5 times. I just don't seem to be able to get reliable backups.

Did they tell you about partioning the Library. I would try that if I ever felt confident with just doing backup from the server's harddrive.

Good luck.

I am unsure how to partition the library?

I also rotate the tapes on a daily basis, so I can store the backups offisite. I'm not sure how partitioning the tape library would impact my rotation.

Peter- Does your library have more than one tape drive?
Does this behavior (media set hopping) happen with every single backup job? Or do the first jobs work correctly and the jobs that run later at night exhibit this behavior?

My thought (and I may be way off) is that your settings are OK for what you want to do, but the behavior of backups spanning more than one tape may be throwing your media set scheme off a bit. If a job is appending to an existing tape and then needs to continue to another, the 2nd tape must be overwritten from the very beginning. So, in your case, you created 2 media set#1 tapes and through the night some media set#1 data has been written to both of them. Then one of the jobs needs another tape- there's no overwritable media set #1 tapes; so it will use a yet to be used media set#2 tape (even though there's room left on a media set #1 tape).

Just a thought I had.

Partitioning as a concept is making smaller libraries out of a big one. You partition the slots, which effectivly limits the avaialble pool of tapes a backup job can even consider to use for the job. If you review this forum you'll see various schemes used like parttions to control which tape gets used each day of the week, or seperating daily backups from full, or tapes that stay in the library vs. tapes that get rotated. Some people want to be able to pick up a tape and know exactly what server backup it contains. Others want their tapes divided by dates. What do you want to do?

Our tape drive has 8 slots. It is an SDLT drive, 160/320.

The movement of tapes to different media sets is a random occurence. In other words, it happens on both jobs at the beginng of the night and at the end.

We run a backup on 10 different servers. Nine of the server backup jobs use 2 tapes. This gives me capacity of 320 GB uncompressed.

The other backup job uses 1 tape, with capacity of 160 GB.

I have totaled the hard drive capacity on the nine backup jobs, and this comes no where close to the 320 uncompressed limit.

Furthermore, the one backup job comes no where close the 160 GB limit.

So there shouldn't be a problem of running out of space.

Any other thoughts?