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nullifi
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How do you handle expired tape management?

Post by nullifi »

I've been going for a while now and I'm wondering what an efficient way is to manage tapes that are offsite, but are expired and ready to come back.
  • I started my tapes with Veeam by having a pool of blank tapes (Technically the expired tapes from my previous tape system) and my media pools are set to pull in free tapes as needed.
  • I fill my library with empty tapes, mark them as free, and each day the ones that were written to (about 2 per day, more on the weekends) are sent off site.
  • Then once a week I have a PowerShell script that gets all the tapes that are marked expired since I last ran the script. Those tapes get sent back here, I throw them in a drawer.
  • Then once a week I fill up the empty slots with whatever tapes I happen to grab from the drawer and mark them as free.
Anyone have any suggestions on a better way to handle this? How do you manage tapes that are expired?
Shestakov
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Re: How do you handle expired tape management?

Post by Shestakov »

Hello Jason,
Do you also use Veeam ONE product?
There is a special report called Tape Media Retention Period providing details about the media expiration.
Thanks!
JaxIsland7575
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Re: How do you handle expired tape management?

Post by JaxIsland7575 »

Jason,
Can I ask why you mark them as free when you re-add them to the tape drive? Does the tape job not just use the tape after the retention has expired without manually marking it as free?
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nullifi
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Re: How do you handle expired tape management?

Post by nullifi »

JaxIsland7575 wrote:Jason,
Can I ask why you mark them as free when you re-add them to the tape drive? Does the tape job not just use the tape after the retention has expired without manually marking it as free?
It does overwrite expired tapes, I mark them as free because I don't keep track of which tape is a member of what media set. If I put four tapes in, and all four belong to my weekly media set, and it's running a daily, it won't have a daily tape available to write to.

I actually just today discovered the Media Vaults settings, so I think I can use that to know where my tapes are.
JaxIsland7575
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Re: How do you handle expired tape management?

Post by JaxIsland7575 »

Ok, makes sense. I know v9 due out at the end of the year will make improvements to the way tapes are handled so managing them should become a bit easier also.
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nullifi
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Re: How do you handle expired tape management?

Post by nullifi » 2 people like this post

I just read the blog post for v9 and tapes, that's awesome. The scenarios it described are exactly what I am putting up with now. Can't wait!
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