Not Appendable (Media Full)

[jcjohnson]

Hi,

I am using BE 12.5 for Windows Server. I backup to a removable RAIDPAC (1.8Tb). My Saturday full backup runs about 550GB and then my daily differentials run about 50GB. I also do another full backup once a week on another system that runs about 30GB. So theoretically, I have approx. 800-900GB in a complete week. The Saturday full is set to overwrite and all other jobs append. There is plenty of free space on all the RAIDPAC's, but each one has at least one media label that shows "Not appendable (Media full). Not sure what's causing this. Thanks in advance for your help!

[pkh]

I don't see RAIDPAC in the BE 12.5 HCL, so it is not supported.

ftp://exftpp.symantec.com/pub/support/products/Backup_Exec_for_WindowsNT/306831.pdf

Still want to use it for your B2D backup, you should at least test it with B2DTest

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH69107

[jcjohnson]

Thanks for the information. I did run the B2DTest & it passed all tests. According to the information I read, if all tests pass, it should be fine. I reformatted one of the RAIDPAC's just the other day & it has already tagged a media file as "Not appendable(media full)" and created another file to write to.

[Ken_Putnam]

Are your jobs defined as "Append" only or as "Append, else Overwrite"?  if it is set to Append only and the only BKF files it can see in the target media set are full, the job will fail  (If it helps any, think of each BKF file as a tape volume)

What are the OPP and APP settings for the media set that you are using? 

[jcjohnson]

The daily differential jobs are set for Append, terminate if no appendable media available.

I'm seeing a range of full BKF files from 180GB - 580GB across the RAIDPAC units, so it would appear that file size doesn't determine the full status??  

Overwrite Protection : None - Allow Overwrite

Appendable Until : Infinite - Allow Append

[pkh]

Is your differential jobs appending to an existing .bkf file or is it creating a a new .bkf file?

If your overwrite protection level is set to None, then you should set to at least Partial.

For B2D, it would be better for you to set an appropriate OPP and then have ALL your jobs as overwrite rather than append.

[jcjohnson]

The differential jobs append to an existing .bkf file, until that particular .bkf file becomes Not Appendable (Media Full). At that point, a new .bkf file is created and the jobs continue using the newly created file.

I believe the reason for no overwrite protection is because the Saturday Full is the only job set to Overwrite. All other jobs are set to Append, terminate if no appendable media available. So, theoretically, the differential jobs should not be creating new .bkf files, but that may be a different topic altogether.

 So if I change all the jobs to overwrite, I would set the Saturday Full OPP to at least 7 days and then set all the daily differentials to at least 1 day each? Would this force the creation of a new .bkf file for each job?

[Ken_Putnam]

I'd use 6 days rather than 7 for the Full, and also for the DIFFS.  If a file is changed on Mon, Tues, and Wed, if you only keep one DIFF, you cannot go back to Monday's version

Also from Tools\Options\Media Management, make sure that either Overwrite Protection is set to FULL or PARTIAL, not NONE 

[pkh]

I believe the reason for no overwrite protection is because the Saturday Full is the only job set to Overwrite.

No. There is no overwrite protection because you have set the protection level to None.

You should follow Ken's advice for your OPP setting.  Make sure that you set the Media Management option (go to Tools --> Options) as shown below so that BE will overwrite the recyclable media rather than create new ones.

[jcjohnson]

So it appears that I may have general job setup issues based on your responses.I need to become more familiar with this product before I implement any changes.

I believe that I have found the problem that is causing .bkf files to be marked "Not appendable, media full". There is a "Maximum number of backup sets per backup-to-disk file" setting in the Backup-to-Disk Properties that was set to a default of 100. My calculations say that I am doing 134 backup sets per week. I have adjusted the setting to 140 & I have not seen the issue reappear. I am continuing to monitor to make certain this was the issue. Thank you both PKH & Ken for your help on this. It was your digging that helped me resolve this. Not sure how to proceed with marking a solution. Thanks.

[jcjohnson]

The issue has resurfaced, even though I set the maximum number of backup sets to backup-disk file to 140.

My Media Management options are set to Partial and overwrite scratch media. If I change to overwrite recycleable media, where does BE get this media from?

As I stated in my last post, I believe there are general job setup issues contributing to this problem, because I have only one media set,for all the jobs. So theoretically all jobs get written to one .bkf file; the Saturday full is set to overwrite and the others are all set to append. If I am going to be applying differing OPP and APP settings then, as I understand it, I need more than one media set. Is that correct?

[quaybj]

not appendable - media full issue

[Ken_Putnam]

I'm not familiar with "removable RAIDPAC"

Are these hard drives? (in a raid enclosure, perhaps?)   if so, you should be using only Overwrite Jobs, Append and disk based jobs tend not to play well together