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technimdaxviii's avatar
technimdaxviii
Level 5
8 years ago

Remove Tape in Library

Hi, We're planning to remove full tape from the library to move offsite. I just wanna know and confirm if we can still put the old tape in the library for recovery. Thank you
7.6
Solaris
  • Tousif's avatar
    Tousif
    8 years ago

    Hello,

     

    Once the tape get expire it will consider new tape. Default it goes to scratch pool or NetBackup pool.

    If any backup trigger or queue job after robot inventory  required new tape then there is possibility to take this this tapes for backup and overwrite the data. 

    Solution:

    Make sure there is no backup running during the inventory and till phase I import against that tape. In busy environment its not possible to keep the environment backup free.

    So, I always recommend to create new pool e.g "restore pool" for this kind of tape and whenever run robot inventory, move that tapes to restore pool. Make sure that restore pool should not be part of any backup. 

    Thanks & Regards

technimdaxviii's avatar
technimdaxviii
Level 5

Wow...Very informative, thank you Sir!

What if those 3 tapes expiring on May 2017 are pull out and then inserted again by June in the library to reuse. Is this possible? Are they consider as new media?

Tousif's avatar
Tousif
Level 6
8 years ago

Hello,

 

Once the tape get expire it will consider new tape. Default it goes to scratch pool or NetBackup pool.

If any backup trigger or queue job after robot inventory  required new tape then there is possibility to take this this tapes for backup and overwrite the data. 

Solution:

Make sure there is no backup running during the inventory and till phase I import against that tape. In busy environment its not possible to keep the environment backup free.

So, I always recommend to create new pool e.g "restore pool" for this kind of tape and whenever run robot inventory, move that tapes to restore pool. Make sure that restore pool should not be part of any backup. 

Thanks & Regards

  • technimdaxviii's avatar
    technimdaxviii
    Level 5
    8 years ago

    Hi Sir,

    Once the tape get expire it will consider new tape. Default it goes to scratch pool or NetBackup pool.

If any backup trigger or queue job after robot inventory  required new tape then there is possibility to take this this tapes for backup and overwrite the data.

    Just to confirm, whenever I've insert an old tape in the library to reuse this will be consider as new and will go to scratch or netbackup pool. Inseting an old tape(expired) still have a data, can I manually clean up the tape before using for backup instead of overwriting?

     

     

    Make sure there is no backup running during the inventory and till phase I import against that tape. In busy environment its not possible to keep the environment backup free.

So, I always recommend to create new pool e.g "restore pool" for this kind of tape and whenever run robot inventory, move that tapes to restore pool. Make sure that restore pool should not be part of any backup.

     

    Noted Sir :) Thank you

    • Tousif's avatar
      Tousif
      Level 6
      8 years ago

      Hello,

      There is option to erase the data on tape called quick erase and long erase. It just like format USB quick format and long format.

      But why are you wasting your time and energy to erase the data manually? Overwrite also do the same think.

      Then, why the quick erase and long erase option is there?

      Possibility:

      1. Discard the tape permanently and before that need to make sure all data on tape erased (Security purpose)

      2. Find any temporary bad sector on tape and causing I/O error. 

       Regards,

       

      • mph999's avatar
        mph999
        Level 6
        8 years ago

        Some good answers in here.

        A few words from me ...

        A quick erase is only a relabel of the tape - the data is not overwritten.  A standard tape drive however will be unable to access the data, as it will not position the tape past the 'end-of-tape'  mark that was written during the labelling process.  A tape drive with modified firmware would be able to access the data - for example, as used by data recovery firms.

        What does a long erase do - well, that depends on the drive manufacturer - all NBU does is send an 'scsi' erase command.  If the drive then overwrites every block on the tape, or only some blocks on the tape ???