Move Overwritable Media to Scratch Media Set

[Niemeyer_Barbos]

Hello everyone,

I have a Backup Exec 2010 and I need to find a way (routine or command line script) to recycle (move) Overwritable Media back to Scratch Media Set.

Any help will be very much appreciated.

Thanks

[CraigV]

Hi,

If the media is overwritable, it's available to be overwritten by any backup job (as long as you don't have partitions and have specific jobs targetted at those partitions). In effect it is scratch, and you don't need to move it to that media set at all...

Thanks!

[Niemeyer_Barbos]

Hi,

Yes, it becomes overwritable but when the Job starts, it will append the remaining free space on Tape and I dont wanna that to happen.

Here is the situation:

I have 2 Backup Jobs, Full Weekly that runs on Friday and Daily Differential that runs Mon-Thu both using same media set.

1 - I have a stand alone tape drive and tapes are exchanged on Thursdays and Mondays. On Thursday Tape is inserted for the Thursday Differential Backup and that tape will also be used for the Friday Weekly Full Backup. So what is happening is when the Thursday Backup runs it is appending to the Media instead of overwriting.

2 - The Tape Inserted on Thursday is not enough to complete the Weekly Full, so on Monday the Tape is replaced to complete the Full backup, and that tape will also be used for Monday-Wednesday Diff Backups.

The settings you proposed would work if the Tapes would get Full before replace them but that does not happen.

Thank you

[CraigV]

...then you can change that through Tools --> Options. There are 3 settings: Overwrite media; Append otherwise overwrite; and Append otherwise abort. I don't remember the exact wording, but it's to that effect. You'd choose the first option. Therefore, if the media is overwritable, it's going to become scratch.

[Niemeyer_Barbos]

If I set it to overwrite, it'll always overwrite the media and I dont wanna that.. so when I replace the tape on Monday to complete the Weekly Full, the Daily Backup (which uses same tape until it gets replaced again on Thursday) will overwrite the Tape.. that is why Im looking for a command line script to move all overwritable medias to Scratch Pool..

[CraigV]

...you might want to check out the bemcmd.exe Admin Guide on the link below:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH126925

[Niemeyer_Barbos]

I have it in hands already but it looks complicated to write a script to do this as it'll need to query for overwritable tapes and use that query in other script that will move the medias.. I have no knowledge to do that and this is why Im contacting Symantec. My client has Symantec Support valid Im just trying the forum first to see if anything similar exists.

[pkh]

There is no way move overwriteable tape automatically to sratch.  You would have to move them manually.  You can vote for my Idea

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/idea/automatically-associate-overrideable-media-scratch-medi...

Can all your differential backups fit onto one tape?  Can you full backup fit onto one tape?

If it is yes to both questions, then it would be better for you to use one tape for your full backup and another one for all your differential backups.  It is not a good idea to leave the full backup hanging over the weekend for another tape.  If there is any crash or error in inserting the second tape for the full backup, you would not have a full backup.  If you are adopting this scenario, you can set the  AP of the media set containing the differential backups to 4 days and change your tape on Friday, rather than Thursday.

[Ken_Putnam]

So set your Weekly job as Overwrite and the Daily as Append, all writing to the same media set, with OPP as appropriate for your needs

[KentB]

What is your append period set to for the media set?  If it is set to "Infinite - Always Append", then this would be the expected behaviour until the tape is full.  Set the append period to the same time as the overwrite period, then the media will only overwrite (and not append) when the tape becomes overwritable.

[Niemeyer_Barbos]

Thanks a lot Kent,

yes it is set to Always Append, I will try that and reply it back here.

[Ken_Putnam]

Set the append period to the same time as the overwrite period, then the media will only overwrite (and not append) when the tape becomes overwritable.

OPP and APP are completely independent

APP is set when the first data is written to a tape or BKF file, and never changes, no matter how many times you append

OPP is set when the last data is written to the tape or BKF, and is reset when the last data is closed

So if you have a media set with 7 day APP and seven day OPP, you can add data for seven days, but not on the eight, however the tape is protected for seven days from the last append, essentially giving you a 14 day OPP

[KentB]

Thanks Ken,

Of course that is correct.  I should have asked what the OPP is.