Overwritable and Appendable media issues

[Ag_BC]

I have issues with Backup Exec 2014 (clean install) on windows 2012 64 bits std. We have a weekly full backup every week and after the recyclable tape come back from the vault, I can see the tape show overwriteable and appendable. The tape status Blue bar is 95% (overwritable 1.3TB), and 5% (2GB) remain appendable. I also check the overwritable media set in the tape are all expried.

On the backup exec setting -> storage _> Media overwrite protection level I have set to partial - protect only allocated media.

Issues I am facing is during the weekly backup start, backup exec will backup 2GB data to appendable space on the tape and mark the tape overwrite protected instead of reuse the overwritable space. Once the tape been marked as overwrite prtected, the system will not able to write to it and ask me for new tape.

Has anyone experience the same issues? What is the resolution?

[pkh · Accepted solution]

This is the expected behaviour.  When you append to a tape, the overwrite protection period starts from the end of the appending job for the ENTIRE tape.  You cannot overwrite just the front part of the tape.

In your situation, you need to provide another overwritable tape for the job to continue.

See this document

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH5459