Backup sets not removed on swapped drives

[kingzor1961]

I'm using Backup Exec 15 on Windows Server 2012 R2 and writing to removable hard drives.  The drives get swapped out periodically.   If a backup set expires while the drive is in, everything works fine.  However, if the backup set expires when the drive is out should I expect it to be deleted once the drive is swapped back in.  If the answer is yes, then this is not working for me and I need some suggestions.  If the answer is no, is there a way (other than manually) to remove these sets.

From reading through the forums, I can tell you that I do have the "Allow Backup Exec to delete all expired backup sets" checked and that the backups set are not the last full backups.

Thanks.

[Colin_Weaver]

Is this USB or RDX style swapped drives?

RDX stye drives (those seen as removable storage) only do the reclaims (deletions of expired sets) when you run a new backup job to the drive

USB drives (those not seen as removable storage) are treated like standard disk storage so within 1 hour (BE 15) or 4 hours (BE 2012 and 2014) of reconnecting the drive a reclaim should occur - note it will not happen immediately as the trigger is a background process that is time based (where the repeating time period starts on the last service restart)

As such neither type of disk would immediately reclaim (athough USB might sometimes look like it has if you reconnect just before a reclaim cycle was due to start.)

[Colin_Weaver]

Extra point: if the USB disks or RDX cartridges are detached for too long the whole disk.cartridge is marked as read only (and reclaims or new backups will not take place) - the timing of this can be adjusted but the reason for this is to protect carridges in long term secure storage from being erased when you have actually brought them back to do a restore. Such storage locations may have gone beyond their software configured expiry timings, but not beyond your manually implemented by not attaching to a server timings

You can also set this limit to read only setting manually if you know you want tpo profect data on a storage device.

[kingzor1961]

Thanks for the reply.  I'm using network storage.  It's a little NAS box with just one drive.  I swap the drive out once a week.  I checked my configurations and I had already unchecked the "Limit Back Exec to read-only operations on a disk-based storage device if it has been detached for...".  I have not unchecked the box for disk cartridge devices.  At this point I'm grasping at straws so I'll uncheck the box and see what happens.  Do you have any other suggestions.

[kingzor1961]

If this helps, the backup set entries inside Backup Exec do get deleted.  The backup files on the hard drive do not.

[kingzor1961]

Well, I was playing around and all of a sudden noticed that all the previously expired backup sets that had not been deleted are now deleted.  I'm pretty sure all I did was uncheck the box for disk cartridges like I stated in a previous post.  I'll know for sure when the drives are swapped again.  Not sure why this disk cartridge setting would effect disk storage, but as long as it's working I'm good.

In about a week, I'll post what happens when I swap out the drives in the hopes this might benefit someone else.

[Colin_Weaver]

Unfortunately there are parts of that type of configuration that are not supported by Backup Exec as BE cannot correctly detect or manage the disk swap changes if the drives are not attached to the BE server

We only support detachable drives that are attached directly to the Backup Exec Server and are aware that detaching drives that are accessed over shares has caused problems in the past (usually with BE deciding the drives are offline and not automatically bringing them back online.)

In your setup we are probably seeing every swapped out disk as the same disk because all we see is the ID of  the share and we cannot manage DLM if what we see as the same disk keeps changing the content outside of our control.

[Colin_Weaver]

As per my comment on your earlier post, your solution is not officially supported, you might be find ways to manage it that work for you but for official support the detachable drives have to be attached to the Backup Exec Server and not accessed over a share on the NAS.

[kingzor1961]

I was wrong.  Unchecking the disk cartridge box had nothing to do with it.  The real fix was to run "Inventory and Catalog now" once the drive is swapped back in.  This works fine for me because of the number of full backups we're doing.  It may not be suitable for someone else.