How can I get BackupExec to only use specific tapes for a backup?

[Jay_Castle]

I have created media sets, specified those media sets in the back-up policies etc but no matter what I do, the system will just pick a tape, seemingly at random, and use it.. When I check after the backup, the tapes will even have moved to the media set specified in the policy!  This is my first time setting up and using Backupexec - a definate noob, I'm afraid!  Please help!

[CraigV]

How about partitioning your autoloader/tape library if you can? Push specific jobs to specific slots, and that way you can ensure that only certain tapes are being used. You will need to keep track of what tapes go in what slots though, so that will make it a bit long-winded.

[Jay_Castle]

CraigV, thanks for answering so quickly - I will look into partitioning the autoloader and see how it goes. But I can't help feeling that this is a pretty basic request to make of my backup software. What use are media sets if they're not used to designate what tapes are used and when?  And what use are they when tapes can shift, willy-nilly, from one to the other at the whim of the system?

[Richard-ADRA]

Jay, for what it's worth, we had a similar situation where we have two backup jobs and we wanted both jobs to use the same tape, with the second job appending to the first. We found that it would sometimes pick the same tape, and other times it would pick another tape and append to it several nights in a row until it was full, etc. I called BE support, and they suggested changing the media set to have an appendable window of about 12 hours. That way, the tape that is used for the first job is the only appendable tape available to the second job, none of the other tapes in the media set are appendable during that time frame. That seems to work great.

--Richard

[Ken_Putnam · Accepted solution]

From Tools\Options\Media Management

verify that "use overwriteable media in the target media set before scratch media" is selected, rather than the default of "use scratch media  before ..."

With the default, BackupExec will use the oldest tape it can find first, reagardless of the media set it belongs to (oldest meaning in Overwritable Status longest)   Why this is the default I'll never know  !!

But Craig's suggestion of partitioning the loader will also work

[Jay_Castle]

Thanks to you all for some great answers.  I will try the things you suggested and post back the results.

[Jay_Castle]

Ken, I tried your suggestion and it appears to have worked. I set-up a backup job for yesterday and put a full load of tapes in the autoloader - the job picked up the correct tape and the backup completed successfully.  Thanks again for your help! Cheers, J.

[Jay_Castle]

Ken, I tried your suggestion and it appears to have worked. I set-up a backup job for yesterday and put a full load of tapes in the autoloader - the job picked up the correct tape and the backup completed successfully. Thanks again for your help! Cheers, J.