how does BE pick tapes from a library?

[shellac]

hi all,

I don't see any rhyme or reason to how my BE is picking tapes from my dual-Overland Neo 2000 libraries. It will pick from slot 3, then 13, then 10, then 22, then 2, then 5......what the heck is it doing? it just makes it a pain to change tapes and whatnot.

thanks

 

[justin2000]

shellac

have a read of the admin guide - specially media sets, overwrite protection and the settings.
it will then give u a fair idea on how BE is picking up tapes and what is uses to do this.

 

[SQLBill]

Basically there are three ways for BE to decide which tape to use.

1. Partitions are set up. You can partition the slots to be used for specific jobs. For example, you could take a 10 slot library, make 8 partitions (slots 0,1,2,3,4,5,6 as separate partitions and 7-9 as one partition) then create 7 backup jobs (one for each day of the week) to go to a specific partition (slot/partition 0 to 6) then use 7 to 9 as all other backup jobs.

2. Media sets. You can assign tapes to media sets and then assign jobs to the media set. However, if there are extra tapes not assigned, BE will use those randomly.

3. Don't assign anything. BE will then use whatever tape it feels like using.

Partitioning is the way to go if you really want to control which tape is being used for a specific job. You can assign one or more slots to a single partition.

-SQLBill

 

[stevet3]

The basics of Advanced Device and Media Management for VERITAS Backup Exec (tm) for Windows Servers

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/192265.htm

An explanation of the "Overwrite Protection Period" and the "Append Period"

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/237374.htm