No overwriting on removable B2D folder

[Stefano_Gianfra]

Hi everybody,

I still have several problems with backup on RDX drives. Now the point is that disk fills up without overwriting (please see attached image). Backup job is set to "Overwrite media", OPP set to 6 days, there are 4 Cartridges, one per Week. Devices are configured as "removable backup to disk folders". Yesterday a differential backup job failed after 12GB (V-79-57344-33935 - No more disk space...), the day before the same job completed with 43GB. Tonight a full backup is scheduled which will fail for sure.

As you can see on the sceenshot there is plenty of overwritable files with a total size of about 250GB. This should be enough for yesterdays differential and todays full backup job (usually about 150 GB). But why does BE not overwrite (it's BE 2010 R3, completely patched)?

Thanks in advance for your help and regards,
Stefano

[VJware]

Have you looked at - http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH70364

[Kiran_Bandi]

For proper overwritng, media management setting should be set to "Overwrite Recyclable media in target media set before Scratch media".

You might want to read this BLOG.

[Stefano_Gianfra]

Hi VJware, thanks for input, this document seems to be removed.

Hi Kiran, these settings are the same as mine beside the OPP, which is set to 6 days within this weekly backup scheme. So it is shorter as suggested which should not prevent from overwriting.

What I don't understand is 

With all the above settings each B2D job will create a separate backup set (bkf file) and from the starting of second cycle BE starts overwriting the oldest among the recyclable media.

I have two backup jobs (daily differential and weekly full), so I guess there should be two bkf files although I cannot find them and don't know, whether they're are important to me. I don't see how OPP or AP settings cause BE to create separate backup sets - shouldn't there always be one bkf file per backup job?

Anyway: Yesterdays weekly full backup job failed and after just having relaunched it manually it immediately claims that there is no space available - but the situation did not change from what you see in the screenshot: plenty of files marked as overwritable.

Any idea, guys?

Perhaps I should create a weekly batch to format the RDX drive, scheduled to run before full backup job on friday (similar to the batch job that runs after backup job to reboot the server to get the cartridges ejected)?

Thanks a lot,
S.

[pkh]

As the document quoted earlier suggested, did you move the .img files to the scratch media set or delete them?

.bkf files are created when you are backing up non-GRT resources.  In your case, since you are using GRT, .img files would be used instead, so don't worry about .bkf files.

[Stefano_Gianfra]

PKH, excuse my ignorance, BKF files are the backup files on the disks. Of course they are there. :) I have both, img and bkf files on each disk.

Unfortunately I cannot find TECH70364, there is an error message "not found". What do you mean with "move img files to scratch media set or delete them" - what is a scratch media set? I created one media set called "B2D", set the OPP and configured both backup jobs (daily and weekly) to use this set. That's all I did. Neither did I delete any file on the disks, I thought this should be done automatically. Thanks in advance if you could clarify that.

Thanks and regards,
Stefano 

[VJware]

Try opening the KB article again...I guess there was scheduled maintenance yesterday due to which KB articles could not be retrieved...however pls try now

[pkh]

The scratch media set comes with BE.  You don't have to create it.  Look for it in the Media tab.

When a media is placed in the scratch media set, it immediately becomes overwriteable.  To put a media in the scratch media set, right-click on the media and associate it with the scratch media set.

To delete a media.

1) Right-click on the media and associate it with the Retired media set.

2) In the Retired media set, right-click on the media and select delete.  This will delete it from BE.

3) physically delete it from the hard-disk using Windows Explorer.

[Stefano_Gianfra]

Ah, now it is available, VJware :) There's in fact something new in this article: To run an inventory before every backup. I scheduled this now - let's see...

Thanks!

[Stefano_Gianfra]

pkh,

ok, scratch media set seems to be what is called "Temporäre Medien" in my clients BE language. What I did now was to setup a daily inventory job scheduled to run prior to the backup jobs as it is stated in TECH70364. I also freshly initiated (formatted) this weeks disk and will do so for the next three disks as well as soon as they're attached. All job settings are as suggested in the documents mentioned by you and VJware. So next overwriting will occur in four weeks, I'll report the results.

Thanks a lot for your efforts so far,
Stefano