How to rotate tapes ?

[Nicolas_DUBUS]

Hello,

I am new on this forum.

I wish to know how to rotate tapes efficiently ? I do and want to do a full backup everynight.
I wish something simple, I have a tape drive with 10 slots and I wish that the oldest tapes is used to make the back that night. Right now, it is randomly.
Or that goes in this order : 1 to 10.

Any ideas, Suggestions ?

Thank You

Nicolas

[Ken_Putnam]

Place the oldest tape you have in slot one, the next in slot 2 etc. after this , they should all keep going in the same slot order.


If you have to replace one of the tapes, label it, and let BackupExec place it in the production media set.

[Nicolas_DUBUS]

Hello,

Thanks I am going to try this.

But can you explain how to label it and let backup exec put in the production set ?

Thank You

Nicolas

[Ken_Putnam]

When you label a new tape, or relabel an old one, BackupExec places the tape volume in the Scratch media set, meaning that any overwrite job can grab it.

If you label and then move it to a production media set, then you cannot use the tape until the OPP for that media set has expired, since the tape takes all properties of the media set as of the time that it is moved, including the OPP

[Nicolas_DUBUS]

Ken,

I have inserted my tapes from slot 1 to slot 10.
With slot 1 the oldest tape and slot 10 the newest tape.

And last night the full backup took slot 7 ..
And I really dont understand why !!

Any ideas ?

Nicolas

[Ken_Putnam]

Maybe I didn't explain myself. I meant the tape that had been in scratch status longest.

Are all these tapes in the same media set?

If not, Is the global tape management option set to "Use Overwriteable media in target media set before Scratch media" selected?

[Nicolas_DUBUS]

Well,

I had created a media set "Exabyte_VXA2" in "Media Sets".
Some media label are blue, some media label are grey, some media are online some are offline.
Those I am using right now in the different slots of the tape drives are in the media location "EXABYTE 1(FILE01)".

What do I need to do to rotate these tapes in order and not randomly ?

Thank You

Nicolas

[Ken_Putnam]

Volumes that display in Blue are Overwriteable, those that display in Black are not.


if you don't want any info on any of the tapes that are mounted, you could re-label them (basically a quick erase) in the order that you want them used

[Nicolas_DUBUS]

Hello,

I did erase those but it is still taking randomly the tapes.
It is crazy how difficult it is to rotate the tapes in such an order : by date or by tape #

Any more ideas ?

Thank You

Nicolas

[Ken_Putnam]

Did you re-label them in the order that you wanted BackupExec to use them?

[Robert_Schmidt_]

You have 10 slots and want to do a full backup every day.
I'm going to assume you mean 'every day' Mon-Fri.
I'm also going to assume you have 10 tapes - enough for 2 weeks.

On the Exabyte media set you created, set the overwrite protection to 13 days
(or 6 days if you only have 5 tapes).

Now, load up and inventory the tapes.
On the 'Media' tab, move ALL of the tapes to 'Retired Media'
For today, move ONLY the tape you want backup to use to 'Scratch'

When backup runs, it will use that tape and put it in your Exabyte media set.

Next day, do the same - move ONLY the tape you want it to use to 'Scratch'.
You will repeat this process every day until you are once through your entire set of tapes.
After that, provided all backups process correctly, your tapes will be used in order.

If it helps you conceptually and visually, you can load them in the slots in order, but you don't really have to.

Cheers

[Gauri_Ketkar]

Hi,

Following Technotes will be helpful...

Technote

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/237374.htm

Technote

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/192265.htm


Update us on the same and revert for any further Query
Hope this will help you


Thank you
Gauri


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