Library picking wrong tape

[Robert_Gainey]

I am using Backup Exec 10d with an IBM Ultrium 3581 L28 changer. I set up the software so each weekday has its own media set, so Monday's backup always goes on the Monday tape, etc. Then there is a weekly media set with 4 tapes for each week of the month, then a monthly media set. In the library I keep the 4 weekday tapes (Mon-Thur), one weekly, and one monthly. Over the weekend I ran the monthly job, but it moved the Tuesday tape to the monthly media set and used that instead of the new April tape in the library. I made sure all tapes except the monthly tapes were out of the monthly media set and ran it again. This time it moved Monday out of the monday media set and into the monthly media set and used that. The third time I tried, it took a tape out of the weekly media set. Please let me know how to set it up to use the tapes designated instead of picking at random.

[Ken_Putnam]

It may seem random, but does follow some rules

Tools\Options\media management -
Is "Use Overwriteable Media in Target Media Set Before Scratch Media" selected?

if not, BackupExec will use the "oldest" (the one in overwritable status longest that it can find, regardless of what media set it belongs to.


The only way to guarantee that a specific tape is used by a particular job is partition the library, and edit/create jobs to point to the correct partition

See
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/262055.htm
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/241773.htm
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/206843.htmMessage was edited by:
Ken Putnam

[Robert_Gainey]

Ken,

Thanks for your message. It not only takes care of my problem, but helps me understand the process a lot better.

Thanks again,
Bob Gainey