Hi all,
I am using NetBackup 6.5.1 with the vault option. We run backups to a Virtual tape library and then use vault to copy the images from the VTL to tape. We recently started an incremental routine for several of our large backups. Before the incremental routine was implemented our vault used approximately 12 LTO3 tapes. After the incremental routine was instituted I expected the number of tapes used to decrease, but I have not seen any decrease at all. We are still using about 12 tapes every day for our vault. I have done research to try and figure out why this is, but I have come up empty handed. I have done two things in an attempt to change our vault up, they are as follows:
1. Reducing the number of streams for the source backup job (hoping that reducing the number of streams would force the data from the image to write to less tapes).
2. Using the "Duplicate smaller images first" option on the Duplication tab of the vault profile.
Neither of these has helped with my issue. Following is an example of our vault eject list, notice the tape usage. These are LTO3 tapes, 400GB of space should be available:
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Robot: TLD(1) Vault: V1 Profile: V1-Dup
3584 Tape Library: Picking List for Robot
MEDIA SLOTID EXPIRATION IMAGES MBYTES CATEGORY EJECTED
0375L2 708 05/19/2009 2 74935 New CTLG YES
2108L3 243 06/15/2009 3 4219 NBU YES
2109L3 276 06/16/2009 31 112337 NBU YES
2110L3 388 06/15/2009 42 304486 NBU YES
2111L3 758 06/15/2009 17 182371 NBU YES
2112L3 759 06/16/2009 82 91839 NBU YES
2113L3 760 06/15/2009 80 188129 NBU YES
2114L3 761 06/15/2009 58 146456 NBU YES
2115L3 762 06/15/2009 7 21916 NBU YES
2116L3 763 06/16/2009 141 459743 NBU YES
2117L3 764 06/16/2009 153 425703 NBU YES
2118L3 765 06/16/2009 222 576160 NBU YES
2119L3 766 06/15/2009 15 502 NBU YES
TOTALS
Number of Media: 13
MBytes for all media: 2589117
Image count on all media: 853
Number of images for this session: 853
MBytes for this session: 2589117
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The smallest amount of data on one tape is 502MB (2119L3). No tape is fully utilized; all of these tapes had expired and were in the scratch pool before being assigned to the vault for use. I will be glad to provide any information regarding the setup of our backup policy's and vault policies if necessary. Thanks in advance for your help.
John