BE2010: Creating a "spare tapes" Media Set?

[BunnDev]

Hello all,

We run BE2010 with a Quantum Superloader 3 (16 tape slots).  Our daily backup requires 2 tapes.  I have created a Media Set for each day containing 2 tapes (i.e. Media Set "Monday" contains tapes Monday 1 and Monday 2, etc.)

Looking ahead I can see the day when the backup may temporarily spill on to 3 tapes or potentially, due to user error, the tapes for that particular day may not be in the autoloader.

What I would like to have is a Media Set containing "spare" tapes.  I.e. If there are no tapes available or a 3rd tape is required BE2010 automatically picks a tape from the "spare" Media Set.

Is this possible?

Many thanks,

BunnDev

[RahulG · Accepted solution]

Well that is not possible and possible as well.
Incase if you have created partiton in your robotic libray with 2 slots the backup job would only write to the tape in that partition and it would not spann to another spare tape in some other partition .
If you do have partition created you can let the tape be in scratch media so once the two tape are full it will pick the thrid tape from the scratch media set ..(Need to make sure of the following setting Tools -Option -Media management -Option selected here should to be to use scratch media before using recyclable media .But once the data is written to the tape ,the tape would get assigned to the same media set deffined in the Backup Job

[CraigV]

Hi BunnDev,

Not sure if this is possible. By default, if a tape is needed, the first thing Backup Exec would do is look for overwritable media. If none exists, it would then use the next scratch tape if available. If this rule wasn't successful, it would either queue the job with a prompt, or cancel it, depending on your rule sets.

Laters!

[BunnDev]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.  So a kind of "workaround" is put the spare tapes in "scratch media" and if they're required (should be rarely) BW2010 wil look there first?

I suppose I could always then move the tape back into "scratch media" when it is no longer needed (i.e. a more up to date backup is taken)?

BunnDev

[CraigV]

Hi BunnDev,

Yes...that is exactly how you would do it. It is easy enough to simply move the tape from 1 media set to the Scratch set, or even simply erase the tape.

Laters!

[RahulG]

All the new tape by default are assigned to the scratch media set. Yes as BE would need tape it would look first in the scratch media
You can do so if the tape is not longer required then u can associate with scratch media to re-use it

[BunnDev]

Thanks everyone, you've both been very helpful but I think I'll mark RahulG's first reply as the solution as he got in first.



BunnDev