BE 2012 Duplicating job to one tape

[ComputerWorld]

I am trying to setup a shedule to backup multiple servers in one job. All fine and backing up to disk no problem.

All the data should fit onto one, maximum two tapes. However when duplicating data the duplicate job places one server per tape and doesn't just continuously fill up the tapes. This obviously isn't ideal as one of the servers is quite small so I'm using a whole tape and it's only using 10% of the capacity of the tape. Having previously used BE 2010 it was possible to get the whole backup duplicated to one tape.

Can anyone point me in right direction to achieve this or do I actually need one tape per server?

[pkh]

When you duplicate to tape, make sure that the first duplicate job overwrites the tape so that you are maximising the use of the tape.  For subsequent duplicate jobs, specify append, otherwise overwrite.  This will append to the tape.  Make sure that the append period of the target media set is set long enough for you to append to the tape.

[ComputerWorld]

The job is setup as one job with all the servers added. Therefore it sets one duplicate job and not one per server. Or do I have to untick the servers when running through the job edit to amend the duplicates in the one job individually?

[pkh]

You can create one job to duplicate all the existing backup set, but for the next run, you would need to select the newly created backup sets.  Hence, scheduling such a duplicate job is pointless.

[ComputerWorld]

So to confirm after every duplicate upon inserting new tapes a new backup set has to created as BE2012 won't just detect tapes and backup to these? I have also noticed that after changing the tapes over and then re-scanning the slots that it shows the data from the previous tapes ie how much free space etc. I have had to manually erase, scratch and re-label the tapes. does this sound right?

[Colin_Weaver]

You have stated that you are using 2012, if you are they you can't create one job containing multiple servers (even to disk) and I suspect this is part of your problem. If you grouped the servers and then created what you thought was one job by using the group, then please be aware that it will actually have created one job per server.

Additionally if you created the duplicate stage at the same time as making the backup to disk stage, then you will have created one duplicate job for every server with all the duplicate jobs having the same settings.

If the above is what you have done then you will need to now edit each duplicate job separately and set them up with the first one to run as an overwrite and all the others as append (as pkh has already mentioned) They may need start time adjustments to achieve what you are trying to do as well.

With regards having to scratch / re-label tapes then if you get the overwrite protection and append settings correct on your media sets then you will not have to do this.

Finally we are looking at a way to backup multiple servers in one job again as this is one of the key issues that BE 2010 customers using tape drives have provided feedback on.