Forum Discussion

Fekko's avatar
Fekko
Level 1
4 years ago

Catalogue old tapes

Hello, we are currently trying to catalogue old LTO4 tapes which have been taken out of storage.
The issue is the system these tapes were backed up on no longer exists and we have no record of what is on any of the tapes.
The issue we have run into when trying to catalogue them is if the backup spans over multiple tapes we cannot run the catalogue process as it needs all the tapes in the library to complete.
Is there a way to view the data on the tapes without having to have all the tapes for that specific backup in the library?
As we have over 1k tapes and trial and error does not sound like a fun way to go.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
8.2
Windows Server 2016
  • Tousif's avatar
    Tousif
    Level 6
    4 years ago

    Hello Fekko,

    You have only two option.

    1. Bring back all tapes in library and perform the Phase I. It will show all images in java console catalog > import tab.
    Generally, the customer use the opscenter to maintain the report which storage have what data. (Recommended option)

    2. Bring back all tapes and perform robot inventory and run the media content report against the media. (This time consuming process)
    https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/doc/15263389-132009154-0/v14663667-132009154

    In both condition you have to bring back all tapes to library.

    Regards,

    Tousif

  • StoneRam-Simon's avatar
    StoneRam-Simon
    Level 6
    4 years ago
    Tranzman from Stone Ram (sorry for plugging my own company) Can catalog media and provide lists of the contents, it doesn't matter if you have the whole set or just part of it, it is able to read what you have and tell you what could be recovered..

    Unfortunately you will only be able to see what is on a tape that is cataloged, but it doesn't need the full set to be there.

    If you are lucky you will find a catalog backup tape, the you can recover it and use Tranzman to merge it into a new netbackup environment.
  • Alexis_Jeldrez's avatar
    Alexis_Jeldrez
    Level 6
    4 years ago

    It is highly recommended to try to understand the general order in which the tapes were written to. For example, create a list with the first tapes that received data at the beginning and the last tapes that were written to at the end.

    The reason for this is that when you start Import Phase I, the reindexed metadata will be expired after a week and there's no way you'll import everything in only one week. This means that if a backup spans two tapes, then the option to Import Phase II for that backup will not show up unless both tapes have their metadata reindexed at the same time.

    If you don't have a list, what will happen is that you'll only be able to import the backups that are only contained on single tapes. When you finish, you'll probably need a second run for all the backups that span over multiple tapes, but by then the imported tapes will show you their original assigned date which will allow you to import again the tapes, now in the proper order.