Hi Shawn,
If you set them to start at the same time, it's going to start alphabetically.
best bet to stagger them is to go into the Scheduling tab on each job and set a different time. This would depend on how long each job runs, and then what sort of hardware you have. An autoloader with 1 drive for example means only 1 job, no matter then number of slots. Same for a library.
however, having more than 1 drive (you need an extra Library Expansion Option license...LEO...for each extra drive over 1).
So...my suggestion would be as follows:
1. Stagger your jobs by scheduling each 1 to start at a different time. You can guage this by checking how long each job runs, and then adding a bit of overhead for the increase in size over time.
2. If you have more than 1 drive in your library, I would select the largest backup jobs to start first. Every job after that can be set to start at different times.
Let me know if you need some help!
Laters!