how to erase next tape while active job on queued

[asus77x]

hi,

the situation is:

- tape library with 3 partition (daily, weekly, monthly)

- partition daily have 5 slots, weekly 1 lost, monthly 1 slot

- current running backup "daily" on slot 5 and full then status is "queued"

- submitted to erase tape daily on slot 1, and got "ready, no idle devices are available"

- change current backup status to hold schedule, and erase tape still not work

any advice how to erase the tape o able continue backup process?

thanks

asus77x

[pkh]

There is no way to do tape operations, like erase while the backup is going on. You need to ensure that you have sufficient overwritable tapes in the targeted partition BEFORE the start of the job. Actually there is no need to erase a tape to make it overwritable. You just need to associate it with the scratch media set and it will be immediately overwritable

[asus77x]

i have set 5 tapes for daily backup cycle. assuming daily backup day-1 use 2 tapes (slot 1 & 2), day-2 use 2 tapes (slot 3 &4). therefore i asuming day-3 will also use 2 tapes on slot-5 then use slot-1 again. when backup job running and tape slot-5 is full, it will try to use tape on slot-1 which already full. so what i need to do is to erase tape on slot-1 so the backup can continue when the tape is erased. 

the problem is when erase job submitted, got the above mention error. i understand must prepare the blank tape prior to the backup jobs running. in case data increase a lot and this situation happen, how to achive that goal without cancel the backup job?

[pkh · Accepted solution]

If you want to recycle the tape in the first slot on the third day then you need to set the OPP of the media set which the tape belongs to, to 1 day. Read the following document http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH5459