medias are not showing Data expiration date

[Dav1234]

Hello All,

Media id's are not showing "data expiration" date, there are approximately 13000 medias

How i can identify that all images are expired from media. 

Can you please suggest

[StefanosM]

you can run the script available_media(.cmd) and you will get the complete list of media and their status.
run it from an elevated command prompt

the script is at
C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin\goodies
/usr/openv/NetBackup/bin/goodies

[Michal_Mikulik1]

Hello,

when Data Expiration is empty then it is simple - it has already passed and all images on the media are expired.

Or you mean that Data Expiration for some tapes is empty and should not be? Then it would be a bug, but I have never heard about such issue.

Regards

M.

[Nicolai]

Media expiration and image expiration is two different things

Usually a media doesn't have a expiration date, a date where Netbackup will stop using the media. But you can configure it. 

Image expiration is when a image on a tape expires

[Dav1234]

Hello Michal,

u mean that Data Expiration for some tapes is empty and should not be?--> No i didn't mean that but i want to confirm that if media is not showing "data expiration date" and not showing any date in "last written" also kilobytes and Images tab showing "0" value it means media is expired and there is no data in media?

See example below:

Media ID

Barcode

Data Expiration

Volume Expiration

Last Written

Kilobytes

Images

Valid Images

Time Assigned

First Mount

Last Mount

Media Status

Media Owner

D002xx

D00233

0

0

0

10/07/2017 9:48

22/06/2007 19:53

29/05/2017 2:28

Frozen

XXXXXX

D003xx

D00303

0

0

0

10/07/2017 22:22

19/07/2007 20:11

30/05/2017 8:56

Frozen

XXXXXX

[davidmoline]

Hi @Dav1234 

The data expiration for media is the time the last image on that media expires. Normally at that time, the media is unassigned and returned for reuse. Those two media are frozen which means that they will not be unassigned unless you change the frozen status (frozen media can be caused by media write errors, or it can be done manually). 

As for what is on the media - there will still be data on them which can be imported back into NetBackup if desired, but whatever images are on them have expired from the NetBackup catalog. If you really are interested in what may be on them use the bpmedialist -mcontents command to read the tapes.

Cheers
David

[Dav1234]

Hello David,

actually we have to handover these medias to vendor to use in another infra.

So, These medias are empty and there is no valid images on these medias and we can handover these media to use in another infra? 

[davidmoline]

HI @Dav1234 

If the media have been used in the past then almost certainly there is data on them (it would have expired from NetBackup). NetBackup does nothing with tape media to "erase" them once all images have expired (this can be an advantage incertain circumstances allowing otherwise expired images to be recovered). 

If you intend to use these media for another customer, it would be best to use the erase option (ricght click and select on of the erase options) before letting another customer use them - you will have to unfreeze the media before you can do this. 

Finally - if the media has been frozen due to tape write errors, then using them for new backups is probably not a great idea, better to get new media instead.

CHeers
David

[Dav1234]

Thank you, David!!

So, i can tell to management that there is no valid images on media( considering retention period of Netbackup and ignoring the import operation here).