Media being taken from wrong pool when writable media is available

[Neil_Hancock_2]

I have 2 media pools: a full pool and an incremental pool. I have overwrite protection set to 4 weeks and infinite append on the incremental pool.

My incremental jobs are set to append and to overwrite if no appendable media is available.

I keep a set of tapes in the library for the incrementals and remove/replace the fulls on Mondays.

I have 3 incremental tapes that have over 130GB of available capacity each in the library. I also had 5 tapes from the full pool that are overwritable.

My incremental jobs have been occasionally overwriting media from my full pool instead of appending to media that have plenty of appendable space.


Any help would be appreciated.

[Ken_Putnam]

Tools\Options\Media Mangaement (I think)

Select " Use overwriteable media in the target media set before scratch media"

[Neil_Hancock_2]

Ken,

Thanks for the reply. That was an option I forgot to mention in the original post.

I do have it checked to:
Overwrite recyclable media contained in the target media set before overwriting scratch media.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Neil

[Neil_Hancock_2]

I had thought about setting the jobs to use appendable media, and terminate the job if none is available. But it didn't sound like it could allocate any media from the scratch pool when the existing tapes filled up.

[Ken_Putnam]

That should work OK. Append only applies to the first tape of a job. If the tape fills up the next volume(s) is/are assumed to be Overwrite, so the "Use overwritable setting" will apply.

Double check the append period of the media set. Remember that Append is calculated from the date/time of the first file of the first backupset written to tape, while Overwrite Period is calculated from the date/time of the last file of the last backupset written to the volume.

[Neil_Hancock_2]

I just checked. On my incremental pool, the overwrite protection is set to 4 weeks and the Append Period is Infinite.

Just to double check what you were saying.

If I had the job set to only use appendable media, when the existing tapes were full, it would use a tape from the scratch pool?

Or were you saying that the job should have been OK if it was set to use appendable media, then overwrite if no appendable was available? (the way it's currently set up)

My goal with this setup was to leave a pool of incremental tapes in the library at all times and just rotate the full tapes in and out on a weekly basis for offsite storage.




Thanks,
Neil

[Ken_Putnam]

If you have your job defined as Append only, if there are no appendable tapes (only new/newly labeled, other media sets, outside append period) then the job will end.

If the job is Append, else Overwrite, then it will look for appendable first, then Overwritable (based on "Use overwritable media in target media set before Scratch media" yes/no, if it cannot find any, then it will prompt for an overwritable tapeMessage was edited by:
Ken Putnam

[Neil_Hancock_2]

It looks like I have everything set up so it will use the avialable tapes in the pool instead of grabbing media from another pool and overwriting it.

I guess I'll just have to spend a little more time on media management and try to compensate by adding some extra scratch tapes in the library.

[tejashree_Bhate]

Hello,

Please let us know if your issue is solved. Additionaly you may also refer to the following technotes.
(title) The basics of Advanced Device and Media Management for VERITAS Backup Exec (tm) for Windows Servers

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

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

Thanks,
NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to answered questions pool.

[Neil_Hancock_2]

My issue has not been solved.

I still do not know why an incremental job that is set to append; overwrote media from another pool when appendable media was available.

It's possible I missed something, but it looks like the way I have the jobs and media pools configured, it should not do this.

From the doc

Caution: If an append job fills a media, the job continues on another piece of overwritable media. Depending on your configuration, overwritable media is selected from scratch media or recyclable media. If the media in the drive is not overwritable, a message is displayed, which requests for a scratch media to be inserted.

Does this mean if an incremental job fills up a tape, that it will try to overwrite a tape instead of looking for another appendable tape?Message was edited by:
Neil Hancock

[uz]

This behaviour is "by design" of Backup Exec.

All the prior hints are correct - but, if BEWS can not find an appendable tape and will change to overwrite and will not find an overwritable tape (no matter whether in the scratch pool or in the allocated media set) it grabs ANY overwritable tape from ANY other mediaset it has !!

This is by design ever since ADAMM was introduced to BE.

In Your case, the system does not find such a tape and got one from the full-pool.

Regards

uz

[Amruta_Purandar]

Hello,

If Backup Exec has filled the first tape the second tape that it will use for that backup job will be overwritten. This is by design.

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to answered questions pool.

[Neil_Hancock_2]

Thanks for the replies.

This can be closed.

[kevin_chong_3]

Hi! You could create drive partition and allocate tape drives to respective backup jobs this will also help to prevent backup jobs from taking media from other pools

Hope this help :)