Insert Overwritable Media Alert

[Terence_Lau]

Hi,

I've got a backup job about 330 GB in size on a LTO2 tape that can hold 400 GB. Everything been going smoothly until last week. The backup job will start normally but when it reaches the end (about 333 GB now), it'll eject the tape and the alert is "Insert overwritable Media".

When I cancel the job, it just stays on cancel pending. I have to either reboot the server or stop and restart all backup services for the job to cancel. After that, the backup job status is failed. And the byte count would be some 100 GB below the actual backup job size even though the alert comes out at about 330 GB.

The backup job details are:

1. Full backup
2. Overwrite media
3. OPP is 1 week but the tape is recycled every 4 weeks
4. Tape is LTO2 400GB
5. Using Backup Exec 9.1 Rev 4691 on Windows 2000 Server

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Keith_Langmead]

Not sure about the other side effects you're seeing, but your problem is that you're running out of space on the tape. 400GB is only the theoretical compressed capacity for those people who live in the magical ideal world.

The actual capacity of an LTO2 tape is 200GB (hence them often being labelled as 200/400), and anything you get beyond that is due to compression. Since the compression ratio achieved is variable depending on the type of data more people expect to see a ratio of around 1.2:1, 1.3:1 ish. You're currently getting around 1.6:1 so you're definitely doing better than most of us.

You need to either reduce the backup selection, change your media type to something larger (LTO3 perhaps, 400/800), or add another tape to your backup jobs which the backup can then extend on to.

[Terence_Lau]

Thanks Keith. Much appreciated.

[Keith_Langmead]

But not appreciated enough to mark the answer as correct or helpful obviously! :)