Delay an active, in-process backup?

[carljong]

Our backups take 3 tapes.  When tape 1 is finished, it ejects the tape and waits for a new tape.  When I put in the new tape, the backup resumes immediately.

Is there an option to delay resuming the backup for a few hours after I insert the second tape?

Thanks

[Ken_Putnam]

Nope

Why would you want to? 

If it is because you are worried about resource contention after you insert an overwriteable tape, you may need to look into a small autoloader so the job(s) can complete overnight

[carljong]

We have a tape backup on our network server.  When the backup runs, the server response time is slow.  People are still in the office when I put in the second tape.  It would be great to delay resuming until all the people went home.

[Ken_Putnam · Accepted solution]

You can either get a small autoloader, as I said earlier, or you can split  your backup into two smaller backups, and run them on alternate nights

{edit}

Read your first post again

If your job takes three tapes to complete, you would have to split into three nightly jobs, a lot more complicted to schedule

Sounds like you really need that small autoloader.  Either that or a larger capacity tape drive (preferably one that can still read your older tapes)

I know both are expensive, but how much would you lose if the server died and you couldn't recover all your business critical data?