Backup to tape question

[krogerss]

I have a few source jobs that once complete, are then backed up to tape. If there are some restore points on disk that have been previously backed up to tape and this tape has expired and then erased, will these restore points be copied back to tape for a second time? Thanks.

[Shestakov]

Hello. If some points of the chains are lost, the job will copy to tape the whole chain again.
So it`s recommended to have a retention on tapes not shorter than reterntion of the source job.
By the way, when creating a job you can choose either to backup only the last chain or all chains. During subsequent runs, only the missing restore points will be copied.
Thanks!

[krogerss]

Well these are jobs that were created 2 months ago and mostly have ran without issue. The reason I ask this is because my source jobs are set to forever incremental and my tape jobs are set to create a synthetic full on Fridays or Saturdays. This past Friday, a couple of tape jobs included a week's worth of vib files that just happen to still be on disk. These files had been previously backed up to tape and that tape had since expired and been erased. I didn't know if because of the expiration and erasing of the tape caused these files to be seen as "New Storage" files and backed up again. Otherwise, I don't know these why vib files were backed up again, thus creating a vbk that's twice the normal size. Thanks.

[Shestakov]

Thanks for explaining the situation.
If missing files are from the last chain, the whole chain is to be copied again, but if older files are accidentally lost, they will not be re-copied to the tape from disk automatically. If you need them, you can copy them to tape using file-to-tape or another backup-to-tape job.

[krogerss]

The files were from a previous chain. I have since ran a manual full backup on 5-30-15. The files in question are from the week of 5-11-15.

[Shestakov]

Since those backup files are still on disk and you need them on tapes, I`d suggest to copy missing backup files using file-to-tape job.
Thanks!

[krogerss]

I really didn't need them on tape any longer. I'm really just trying to figure out why they were copied to tape in the first place.

[Shestakov]

As I said at first you are choose either to tape-copy only the last chain or all available chains. Then, only the most recent chain can be re-copied in a case of the restore point loss.
Have you experienced different behavior?

[krogerss]

I don't remember what I chose when creating the job; that was back in April. I may have chose to copy all chains for the first job, but this shouldn't matter at this point, right? Shouldn't it just be copying the latest chain?

[Shestakov]

Correct, probably you set the job to copy all chains. Now, only restore points of the last chains are being copied.

[krogerss]

This is how it's been working until a couple of days ago when it copied these files in question. I may just have to open a case then. Thanks.

[Shestakov]

Well yes, if the files were copied accidentally, logs review with the support team is needed.
Once you get a support case number, please post it here. Thanks!