Tapes, Jobs, etc, advice needed

[TechLad]

Hi,

I've inherited a backup solution as follows...

Compaq server, dual port U160 SCSI card, HP Ultrium 2/20 tape library (2 x Ultrium 230 drives using 200gb tapes)
Arcserve 2000, used to backup netware, nt4 and w2k, have tape library option and raid option installed

Question...

2 jobs are configured, 1 netware , 1 windows - backing up 22 server between them.
netware job runs first, full backup, takes 7 hours or so
windows job run, full backup, takes 14 hours or so
(both times include verify - and this job runs over the weekend)

The raid option and current config allows for 18 tapes in total (half due to raid set) meaning 1800gb capacity
We are backing up in total 925gb...half of the tape capacity and yet we still use all tapes (some times needing 20 tapes)

Any ideas why?
Would we benefit from having 22 seperate jobs with the append option?
Does arcserve use all available tape space or skip space due to some config option?

Any help to sort this out would be much appreciated.

 

[ajtmcse]

Custom Rotation or GFS Rotation?

Please post the rotation info. i.e. Fulls daily, or Fulls on Wknd, Incr/Diff on Weekdays??

 

[TechLad]

The rotation is configured as follows:-

GFS rotation
Fri/weekend - full backup
Mon-Thur - differential

As a guide 6 tapes are used daily (sometimes 8 on the Thur)

Thanks