Overwrite Protect Media Group

No, for writing/data protection jobs, media should only be picked from Default Scratch or a user defined scratch pool

Hey @YYZ , hope all is well!

Tapes in the Overwrite Protect Group should be safe from use, though that’s only to stop that scratch tape from being used as a ‘new’ tape for a write job:

https://documentation.commvault.com/2022e/expert/10414_media_by_groups.html#overwrite-protect-media

From the above link:

The Overwrite Protect Media pool is logical repository for media that should not be used for any write operations. The Overwrite Protect Media pool can be used to save media containing aged data, so that the aged data can be restored if necessary. (See Accessing Aged Data for more information.)

Note that only spare media can be moved to the Overwrite Protect Media pool. If you wish to save data from media in the Assigned Media  pool, use the Prevent Reuse option to automatically move the media to a designated Overwrite Protect media pool when the media is recycled.

Note, however, that the guaranteed way of retaining data is setting the right Data Retention Rules or using the Retain the Job option on the Storage Policy Copy.

Did you see a tape get reused?  If so, to be sure, check the gui audit trail for any changes to that barcode’s status.

Hi Mike

The tape was not an empty scratch tape.

It had been used a few days before. It was only used for a single Storage Policy and an associated  single Copy policy  

The tape wasn't full

But had been manually moved to the Overwrite Protect Group (ie from an Assigned Media Group)

The same SP / Copy Policy ran today and has written data to that same tape (while it sits in the Overwrite Protect group)

Here’s the write to the tape - about 5 hours ago

(ignore the IEPOrt location - I exported the tape after I found it was being written to

and here’s inside the tape - just to check what was being written - ie its a modest amount of write

BOL - could be interpreted in many ways

eg

1. Aged data is ‘safe’ inside the Overwrite Protect Group 

2.  or there’s also an implication that the data on the  Tape was safe - but the system was just adding more data to the tape etc 

I suppose the best option would have been to Mark the media full - as all I was trying to achieve was to prevent further data being written to the Tape 

Mike….Thank you 

I’d never placed a ‘non aged’ Tape into the ‘protect’ group before 

My eyes 🤓 did a double take when I saw it was being written to.

Fully understood now - I’ll use ‘Mark as Full’ in the future

Happy to help!