When are the contents of a Date Expired Tape media recoverable?

[D_Blosser]

The "Tape Summary Report" (page 78 of Volume 1 of the Adminstrator's Guide, states that

NetBackup deletes other (non-Frozen ) expired volumes from the media catalog when backups are run. Expired, non-FROZEN volumes display if the report is run between the time the volumes expire and the time that the next backup is run.

If the media catalog is erased, that appears to imply the contents of the tape cartridge itself are untouched, and should be recoverable from a tape cartride that is beyond its Data Expiration date.  Though somewhere in the Guide, there is a statement that recovering files from a Date Expired media is difficult or impossible.

If we select Erase or Long Erase from the NAC GUI Actions menu on a tape, then I would not expect to recover data from that tape.

A second related question: 

If I remove a full tape from the tape library, and send it off-site with a lengthy retention level (level 15 equates to 25 years).  I should be able to return the tape to the library and recover files/backups from the tape.  Since the tape may have been deleted from EMM or the media catalog, I would expect to Import the tape and be able to recover its contents.

[mph999]

If the media catalog is erased, that appears to imply the contents of the tape cartridge itself are untouched, and should be recoverable from a tape cartride that is beyond its Data Expiration date. 

Corret

Though somewhere in the Guide, there is a statement that recovering files from a Date Expired media is difficult or impossible.

Not aware of this, provideing the media hasn't been reused

If we select Erase or Long Erase from the NAC GUI Actions menu on a tape, then I would not expect to recover data from that tape.

Correct

If I remove a full tape from the tape library, and send it off-site with a lengthy retention level (level 15 equates to 25 years).  I should be able to return the tape to the library and recover files/backups from the tape.  Since the tape may have been deleted from EMM or the media catalog, I would expect to Import the tape and be able to recover its contents.

The images will not have been deleted from the catalog until 25 years have passed, so should not be an issue.

If however, they are removed manually, then yes, you can import the tape.

Martin

[J_H_Is_gone]

You said

"If the media catalog is erased, that appears to imply the contents of the tape cartridge itself are untouched, and should be recoverable from a tape cartridge that is beyond its Data Expiration date.  Though somewhere in the Guide, there is a statement that recovering files from a Date Expired media is difficult or impossible. "

You are talking about 2 different things here.

Data Expiration date is the images on the tape.  When the image reaches it expiration date, the next time images cleanup runs (and is flagged to expire images - by default 12 hour intervals) it will expire the IMAGES on the tape.

Date Expired media - has to do with setting an expiration date for the media volume - say tape with barcode A12345.  If you set the volume expiration date as of 4/1/2011 then it will expire that volume (tape).  an expired volume will no longer be used for backups.

there is a difference, when you right click a tape in the gui that stuff at the top is about setting an expiration date for the physical volume - it has nothing to do with the images on the tape.

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if you have images with a 25 year retention - that info and that volume will remain in the catalog until the expiration date of all the data on that volume.  Once the data has expired the tape will be come a scratch. It will only be removed if you expire it early and delete it or when the images expire and the volume also has an expiration date (see above)

If you bring back a tape that has an un-expired images you can read it without import.

if you expire the images on the tape but do not set an expiration date on the volume.  You can send it off site, and when you bring it back you would then have to import to see the data on the volume.

[Stumpr2]

NetBackup does not remove expired data from tape. Once on the tape it remains on the tape even though the data has reached the retention level setup in netbackup schedule used for the backup. When the data reaches expiration then the catalog informatiomn concerning the images on the tape are removed from the catalog.