Reusing Media

[Joel_Borek]

Please excuse me since this is the first time I am using a forum and backup exec but my question involves the moving of media.

I have just started and there is no media strategy that was implemented. The existing tapes have reached there limit and can be appended no more. I would like to Inventory and then move the backup data that is located onto a disk then relabel the tapes and start fresh then I would like to create a backup strategy. My question is how I go about this?
Would I
A. Inventory the tapes
B. Then move the media to BackUp disk folder
C.. Format the tapes
D. Relabel the tapes (and how would I go about doing so)
E. Use the create backup strategy wizard

[Ken_Putnam]

To reuse tapes, just move them to the scratch media set or relabel them

If you re-label them, DO NOT move them to a media set, since they would immediately take on the attributes of the media set, including overwrite protection period

You can also modify the overwrite period of your media sets so that when the tape is due to be reused, BEWS will accept it for overwrite

I use a 6 day retention for my dailies
and a 27 day retention for monthlies

[Mani_2]

Jborek,

To reuse the Media, move them to the Scratch Media Pool. You may set the Media Set properties by referring the following Technote.



http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/237374.htm


You may also use the Media Rotation Strategies as mentioned the Admin Manual (Page 220 onwards) which can be dwonloaded from the following link.



http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/266190.htm





Related Document
===============



http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/192265.htm



Hope this helps.

[Joel_Borek]

Thank you very much! What will happen to the contents of the tape? After I move the tape(s) in question do I catalog the tape and move the media on the tape to the backup on disk folder?

[Ken_Putnam]

If yuo just move to the scratch set, all data on the tape will be lost the next time the tape is overwritten.

to save any data on the tapes, do a "Restore- Redirect" to the selected hard drive.

You can also just purchase a couple more tapes and make one or two "Archive" tapes, and never re-use them, just store them off-site

[Joel_Borek]

so all I do is just do a restore and the file redirection to the backup folder on the hard disk. Then after that I can do a quick erase to the tape?

[Joel_Borek]

Sorry that I keep asking questions but everytime I do a restore then click on the file redirection and specify the drive and folder I get an error message

Restore 0023 -- The job failed with the following error: An error occurred while scanning the catalogs. The job will not continue.

Please check for the following:
- low virtual memory conditions
- a corrupt or truncated catalog
- that the media you are restoring has not been overwritten

Do I need to do something to the tape before I restore the redirect?

[Ken_Putnam]

are you selecting the files to be restored from the Restore Selctions Pane?

Have you tried re-cataloging the tape?

[Joel_Borek]

I tried recataloging the tape by right clicking the the tape and selecting catalog. Once I select catalog I make sure that the device is the robotic library then I hit run now. How long will it take to catalog a tape that is 48.5GB? After I catalog the tape do I select restore data from the task pane and at the selection screen I choose the data I want to restore and then I select redirect files at which time I point them to the backup2disk folder? Is that how it would work

[Ken_Putnam]

You cannot treat a B2D folder like a regular share. It is basically emulating a tape volume, and is written and read sequentially.

You need to just re-direct file restores to a standard FileSystem Share.

If you want to copy the backup itself, you would need to do a COPY job, not a RESTORE job, from the tape to the b2d folder

[ashwin_pawar]

Why do you want to restore the data on tape to the B2D folder. Jut redirect it to any drive. (C,D,E:) ) etc.


Once you do that, you can either erase the tape which would automatically make the tape available for next overwrite operation because its moved to scratch media set. OR else you can move the tape directly to the scratch media set so that next overwirte job wil overwrite the previous data.


Please be free to aks any questions.... and keep us update.