Question

Auxiliary copy to use and fill same tapes info

1 year ago
2 December 2022
4 replies
440 views

Backup_team
Byte
6 replies

Hello,

We have bought a new tape library and we want to create some auxiliary copy jobs to run on a weekly basis for 4 storage policies only for the full backup job's(the client schedule is a full once a day/incr every 1 hour)

The auxiliary copy jobs must all run during the weekend and occupy not more than 2 tapes( we have tapes with big capacity-16TB) because we have only 8 tapes

The question is, how can we make the copy jobs to write and fill up one tape and after to try and fill up another tape when the first one is full?

For example: after the first copy jobs is finished, the second one needs to use the same tape like the first one (if there is still space available of course)and when the tape is full, write on another one and so on

Best regards,

Stefan

4 replies

Userlevel 7

+23

Hi @Backup_team , thanks for the question!

When the Aux copy (first) runs, 1 tape will be assigned per Stream (depending on how much data there is to copy), and those tapes will be used until they are Full (or unavailable, i.e. outside the Library).

If you want to ensure only 1 tape is used until Full, then onto another tape, combine the streams to 1 (though if you have multiple tape drives, you may want this to be higher for performance reasons).

What’s important is to make sure your older tapes/jobs will age off (all of them) by the time they are needed for subsequent jobs, or else all 8 tapes will be Full, but not ready to age off yet.

If you right-click the aux copy and View Media, you should see a view similar to your top screenshot, but with the addition of the assigned Stream Number which should help.

Backup_team
Author
Byte
6 replies
1 year ago
3 December 2022

So, we need to modify this setting at the secondary copy level?

I created 2 storage policies that have 2 secondary copy and i noticed this

the first copy job from the first storage policy uses a tape and after the copy is finished, the tape is removed from the default scratch group and put in the assigned media group

the second copy job from the second storage policy takes another tape and also has this behavior

Userlevel 7

+23

@Backup_team that is correct, assuming you want only ONE tape used at a time until full, set the streams to combine to 1. Just note that the tape assigned to stream 2 will not get used by stream 1. It will sit there until it ages (and then no longer be a concern).