Media question

[563500387]

Relatively a new user with BE10.0. Everything was working fine for about 4 week when suddently we began getting Alert Message "Please insert overwritable media into drive" - After reading some of the forum responses, I have moved the media from Media Set #1 to Scratch media and color changed to "blue" indicating that they are available for backup. After this we did receive a completed backup. Once this was done, the media used for the backup automatically went back into the Media Set 1 slot and was removed from the Scratch media slot. Is this what is supposed to happen or am I still doing something wrong? And will it continue to backup now from the Media 1 slot or do I have to move it into the Scratch position every 4 weeks or so?

[Ken_Putnam]

If you plan to reuse tapes, you need to modify the OverwriteProtectionPeriod of your media set(s) so that when the tape is due to be re-used the OPP has expired. For tapes used every week on the same day user 5 days, for tapes used the same day on overy other week use 12 days, etc.

Yes, when BackupExec overwrites an expired or scratch tape, it is automatically placed in the media set specified in the job description.

[Jedi7]

I might be able to assist you if you tell me your backup strategy, because that will determine your media sets. You may have to create additional media sets to accommodate your needs. For example a Full media set that does a full back up every week a with 5 day overwrite protection and 1 hour append. And a Incremental media set that has a 2 day overwrite and 1 day append.

[563500387]

Thanks.....my strategy is that I am using 6 tapes that I hope will do full server backup everyday, then on Friday we use one tape for the first and third Friday and another for the second and forth Friday. This was working fine until the forth week when I started getting the "use overwritable media" error. I moved all the media to Scratch and it seems to be working now, but I'm really not sure how long that success will last.

[Ken_Putnam]

Standalone drive or library?

[563500387]

Stand Alone drive

[Ken_Putnam]

I would set up two jobs

Daily Media Set Daily OPP 5 days
Weekly Media Set Weekly OPP 12 days

This won't give you a 1/3 and 2/4 Friday tape (because of 5 Friday months), but will alternate tapes.

[563500387]

Thanks - Okay, I set the OPP to 5 days - Do I set the Append Period to "Infinite Allow Append"?

[Ken_Putnam]

That would depend -

Append is figured from the beginning of the first backup set on the tape (as opposed to Overwrite which is figured from the last backupset on the tape) Do you want to be able to add other data to the tape after the nightly job runs? if so, how much after?

Remember that anything you add later will extend the protection period, so if you always want Monday's backup on the Monday tape, you should set Append to 0, and get a couple of tapes for extra jobs.

[563500387]

Thank you very much!