Hi,
I've been doing backups to tape (LTO4 specifically) through BE 12.5. I've run into a couple of quirks and I'm wondering if anyone can help. Here is what I am trying to do. I have folders on the server which each consist of about 700 GB to just under 800 GB. I am backing up these folders and then relabling the labels to go with the backed up folder so that it will be easier to identify and retrieve the files when we need them. I want to keep each tape unique to the folder it backs up therefore I do not append to tapes. When I backup the file, I make two copies, an original and a duplicate for offsite. With those stated file sizes I figure that utilizing LTO 4's would just require one tape each folder. Now the issue is when I am backing up the files, they span onto the next blank tape and only write a couple of gigs (like maybe 20 GB) which, in a sense, wastes a tape because I want each tape to be unique to the file. Another issue is that the duplicate spans two tapes, while the first backup only requires one tape. So my questions are how do I ensure that the backup stays on one tape, and how do I ensure that my duplicate stays on one tape as opposed to two when my original backup only required one tape? Also what would be the best practice for this type of job?
Media Set: Keep data indefinitely (no overwrite) and 1 Hr append (which shouldn't matter because my jobs do not append).
I have tried two different policies as follows:
1st policy
- I have a template which backs up the specified folder to tape.
- Overwrites only, because we want each tape to be labeled according to the file it backs up
- Once the first full backup is done, a duplicate begins
- Issue: the issue with this is that the program gets stuck on the duplication, it sits at loading media even though there are plenty of free tapes available. Because of this issue I have stopped using this policy
2nd Policy
- Similar to the first, except instead of running a "Duplicate" job, I just run another full backup with the exact same characteristics as the first job.
- Both are only overwriting and not appending.
- Issue: The backups work fine, however I am getting instances where one backup or the other will require two tapes instead of one like the previous job. When I look at the job statistics, both jobs have the exact same byte count, but one spans two tapes instead of one.
Any help or insight into this would be appreciated