Append to tape every month

[Gladstone]

Is it a bad idea to append to tape everytime you do a full backup. These tapes are archives that we store offsite for a long time. I often bring back the last tape in the set and append this month backup onto it. I do this to save tapes. I hate it when the a backup job takes 5 tapes but it only use up a little bit of the 5th tape.

What if the catalog blow up in the future? Do I have to bring back all the tapes and catalog them just to restore one or two files? Can you just catalog one tape only if you know that the file is on that particular tape?

Thank you...

[padmaja_rajopad]

Hi,

Do I have to bring back all the tapes and catalog them just to restore one or two files? - Yes. All the tapes used by the backup job have to be catlogged even though all the data backed up wont be restored....

Can you just catalog one tape only if you know that the file is on that particular tape?
- No, Since data is backed up to tapes in a sequential manner all the tapes should be catlogged in a sequential manner.

If an intermediate tape is being catlogged without catlogging the earlier tapes used during backup job, the catalog job may fail..




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[Gladstone]

Thank you for your reply. Please clarify this for us:

For example: If I append to a media set forever, the media set will contain a large number of tapes. Some of the back jobs will span more than one tapes as below:

Jan tape1, tape2, tape3 overwrite
Feb tape3, tape4, tape5 append
Mar tape5, tape6, tape7 append

This is just an example. My monthly backup use up 9 tapes.

After 5 years, I would have 540 tapes in this media set. Does it mean that I will have to catalog all these 540 tapes just to restore a file (if the catalog ever blow up) ?

You are saying that I can just pick up a tape and catalog that tape only? The catalog job will probably give some error; but it should catalog and tell us what on that tape?

What if there is a disaster and I loose all the tapes except for a few tapes?

Thanks

[Ajit_Kulkarni]

Hello,


Please note that the backup job which you are running on a tape should always complete 100% successful so that you can restore it successfully.
Therefore, make sure that the backups are running successful.

Regarding other questions can you please elaborate ?


Regards


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