Backup Exec 10d: LAN Backup overwrite only when drive is full;

[Edward_Charles]

We're using LAN backups for both onsite and offsite backups (using hotswap SATA drives).

We have 7 500GB SATA drives in the server for the LAN backups and want to use all it's 3.5 TeraByte capacity to be able to restore as far back as possible.

How do we configure Symantec Backup Exec 10d to only start overwriting the (oldest).bkf files when the drive is full? So we want to use the max capacity of the drives and when it's full it needs to start the overwriting of the oldest files first so you always have the most current backups on the drive for als long as possible.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Ken_Putnam]

Set the media Overwrite Option to "use Scratch media before Overwriteable  media in the target media set"

See the Admin Guide, page 199

[Edward_Charles]

Thanks for that (Ken),

I've downloaded the 10d admin guide and there is some info on this around pages 229.

We can set it to overwrite Scratch media first with Partial overwrite protection, however does it keep in mind when the drive is full it should start overwriting the oldest files and not stop the job and giving the "please insert overwritable media" alerts.

On the jobs's Device & Media properties what should be selected there for "When the job begings:"

- Overwrite Media

- Append to Media, overwrite if no appendable media is available

- Append to Media, terminate job if no appendable media is available

We thought the second option since what we need is just to keep adding to the drive and then overwrite when full.

Does Append to media mean to just keep adding more jobs to the same Backup-to-disk folder untill full and then overwrite?

All this is a bit confusing and we've done some testing but didn't really get the results we expected.

We would greatly appreciate some answers on these questions.

Thanks again!

Regards,

[Ken_Putnam]

Global Overwrite protection of "partial" should be good

Set the Jobs to Overwrite, and they will try to write to blank media (tape) or create a new BKF file (disk)

when the disk fills up and it can no longer create a new BKF file, BackupExec should start overwriting old BKF files

Does Append to media mean to just keep adding more jobs to the same Backup-to-disk folder untill full and then overwrite?

Nope.  when you append, each new BKF file is treated a part of the same media "family" and all BKF files in that family are covered by the same OPP and APP.  When the last BKF file is closed, the "protected until" date on ALL of the BKF files is reset according to the OPP

[Edward_Charles]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for that quick response, greatly appreciated!

So when you  have it set to overwrite recyclable media first you would get the alert "insert overwritable media" and the job would queue when drive if full.

And when you have it set to overwrite scratch media first (which is what we need) it will just continue starting to overwrite the oldest BKF file?

Am not really familiar with Media sets and always just just Media set 1. What would the reason be to have more media sets?

Thanks again Ken!

[Ken_Putnam]

So when you  have it set to overwrite recyclable media first you would get the alert "insert overwritable media" and the job would queue when drive if full.

If you have that set, then as soon as the OPP has expired, BackupExec would start overwiting old BKF files no matter how much free space is available.  By setting the other way (use scratch first) Backup Exec will try create a new BKF file, and when the disk finally fills up, will then change to Overwrite expired media based on the oldest OPP date

What would the reason be to have more media sets?

If you have more than one Backup Job, using different media sets lets you protect different data differently

For example, you might set nightly Diffs or Incr to 6 days OOO, and let the BKF files (or tape volumes)  be overwriitten on the seventh day.  And you might keep weekly fulls for 4 weeks (27 days) and keep monthlies forever

[Edward_Charles]

THanks again Ken,

So what we want is keep the jobs as long as possible obviously. But would you recommend doing it the way we discussed by only overwriting when the drive is full and using it's max capacity or would using different media sets work better? Using media set's wouldn't allow you to backup any more data for a longer time to the drive anyway when it's full right.

We have 7 500GB drives with 6 Backup-to-disk folders on each. We have a drive for each day of the week and a folder for each server that gets backed up.

Thanks!

Regards,

[Edward_Charles]

So Ken, would you recommend overwriting or using different media sets, please see previous correspondance.

Thank you.

Regards,

[Ken_Putnam]

Using media set's wouldn't allow you to backup any more data for a longer time to the drive anyway when it's full right.

Correct

You can use different B2D folders, it would make things easier should you ever need to manually remove/expire BKF files