unnecessarily allocating a new tape each time job is run

Hi,

Set your media management option to Overwrite recyclable media in the target media set before using Scratch Media.

Also check your media set OPP and AP values. Append period value may not be enough to use the tapes. 

Regards...

If the backup spans over multiple tapes then BE will require an overwritable media or a scratch media

from 2nd tape onwards. 

 i apologize if i'm being ignorant here, but i cannot find the media management options to make the setting you are referring to.  What we are doing is setting the overwrite to never and the append to infinite, we take the tapes out when they are full.  The tapes are not filling up before new ones are being allocated. 

Again i'm sorry if i'm hitting a RTFM moment, but i'm searching and cannot find where to change the setting you suggest.t

thanks for your help.

John Reynolds

Click on Tools->options->Media management-> Use recycable media before using scratch media

You can find it under Tools--> Options --> Media Management

If you set the OPP to never, BE will not use those tapes for overwriting. So as amol already said, while spanning over multiple tapes BE will use only new/overwritable media. As you have infinite append perios if your job starts as Append to media, BE will use one appendable media in the target media set to start backup job. But when it finishes it will search for overwritable media, which will not be available in target media set as per your settings. That's why BE using media from Scratch media set. 

Tune your OPP value accordingly for BE to manage media efficiently.

Thanks...

i found the setting and it was already checked.

What is happening is that we have tapes in media sets with capaciy (for example, tape A has 553 gb of 781 total gb used, so 228 gb available space).  When we run the backup job, there is an addition 50 gb of data to be archived that night.  What i expect to happen is that 50gb will be added to the 553 gb on tape A for a total of 603gb out of 781 used.  this is what previously happened.  What has been happening lately is that instead of adding to the current tape, it will allocate a tape from scratch media.

Now the truly intriguing part is that if i make sure that there is no available scratch media, the job will append the 50gb to the 553 as i expect it to.  so that's why i was thinking to put the empty media in the media set.  but since i'm not allowing overwrites and only allowing appends, you're saying that it won't find that media as available, even though it is in the same media set and it is empty. 

Am i understanding properly and have i clarified exactly what is happening in a sensible way?

thanks,

John Reynolds

Things behaved properly this morning, i will monitor the situation to see if it reoccurs. 

Thanks for the suggestion,

John Reynolds

thanks again, i'll reopen this thread if it reoccurs.