Job asks for more media even though plenty is available...

[Michael_Pietr1]

Hello there everyone,

I have been newly introduced to BackupExec after working with NetBackup for 5 years and so far, I am really hating this product. It's not so much the product but just my lack of knowledge.

I have a Sony AIT3 Lib-162 library with 16 slots and 2 drives. I have loaded the media and succesfully inventoried the tapes. This is a fresh install so I have one media set named "Tape Media".

Under devices I correctly see the library and both drives.

My backup is of a file server of about 300 gigs. The jobs takes a while but that is not my problem. Right now, I can run the job, it will run and run and all of a sudden, the job will stop asking me to insert more media. I don't know why this is happening because in the job details, I told it to use "Tape Media" which holds all the tapes. It's not until I go into media and drag any tapes not allocated to the "scratch media".

Under devices, I tried creating a device partition with all the tapes in it but that didn't seem to help.

Does anyone have any idea what I am doing wrong? Basically I just want the job to run and to use all the tapes in the library as needed.

Thanks,

Michael

PS, Ken, I see you are in San Diego...I'll buy ya a six pack if you can help :) I'm up at SDSU.

[Ken_Putnam]

Have you labeled the new tapes, and then moved them into the "TapeMedia" media set?

If so, they took on all the properties of that media set as of the time that you moved them, including the OPP (Overwrite Protection Period)


re-label any tapes that have not yet been used, in the order that you want them to be used, but leave them in the scratch media set.

BackupExec should happily pull from there.

[Michael_Pietr1]

Hi Ken- Thanks for replying...

All 16 tapes are all fresh and have been labled 6 -1 through 6 -15 respectively.

So in following your procedure, I move ALL the tapes out of "Tape Media" then made sure to make the OPP 1 hour for that media set. (this is just testing so that should be fine)

So I will now move them back into the media set and run the backup? OR is it a best practice to keep them all in the scratch and let the backup job pull from there?

Thanks again Ken.

Michael

[Stumpr2]

My expertise is NetBackup and I have years of experience with it. BackupExec is foreign to me too. I would like to get an opportunity to learn BackupExec. Please let me know how the transition fared for you after you've had a few months to play around with it.

[Ken_Putnam]

Just leave them in the scratch set. BackupExec will user them in the order that they were labeled.

if you want to make absolutely sure that Tuesday data goes to the tape labeled for Tuesday, you could partition the library and create a job for each night, pointed at the correct partition

[Michael_Pietr1]

Thanks Ken!! I left all media in scratch and the job pulled them from there and placed them correctly in the "Tape Media" media set.

Ken, do you work as a consultant here in San Diego for BackUpExec.

Bob- regarding the move from NetBackup to BackupExec, I can't believe that Veritas\Symantec keeps this product around. I really don't know the purpose.

NetBackup is by far and away an easier product to use and understand. The job creation interface is much more elegant and handling media, to me, is far easier.

Plus you get great features like media multiplexing, alternate data streams etc etc.

The more I use BackupExec the more I begin to understand the in's and out's but I wish they merged the two products.

Michael

[Ken_Putnam]

Nope - Just a long time user

Back in the old Seagate Moderated Forum (v6.1/6.11/7.0) I often got better answers from other users than from the Tech Support presence. Figure that what went around should keep going around, right?

[Asma_Tamboli]

Hi,

You could also check out the following documents:

The basics of Advanced Device and Media Management for Backup Exec for Windows Servers
http://support.veritas.com/docs/192265


An explanation of the "Overwrite Protection Period" and the "Append Period"
http://support.veritas.com/docs/237374

Do let us know if you have any queries!

Thanks.