Eject tape after erasing

[UT2015]

Hi,

when manually selecting an online tape and erasing it (right mouse "Erase Tape") the tape is moved into the corresponding drive and it is erased, but it is not automatically ejected, it stays in the drive. It currently has to be ejected manually ("Eject Tape").

Is there a way to automatically eject it after erasing?

Regards,
UT2015

[veremin]

You can write a simple PS script that will answer your requirements and run it on whatever basis you want to. Thanks.

[UT2015]

Where should I integrate that script?

How shall I eject a tape via script?

Why does Veeam behave in such a way. If multiple tapes are erased, all tapes except the last one are automatically ejected.

[veremin]

Where should I integrate that script?

Just run it via PowerShell.

How shall I eject a tape via script?

Something like this should meet your expectations. Be aware, to provide both tape and drive names.

Code: Select all

asnp VeeamPSSnapin
$Tape = Get-VBRTapeMedium -Name "Name of your Tape"
Erase-VBRTapeMedium -Medium $Tape -Wait
$Drive = Get-VBRTapeDrive -Name "Name of your Drive"
Eject-VBRTapeDrive -Drive $Drive

Why does Veeam behave in such a way.

It's by design. If you initiate erase operation, we expect that a tape will be used either now or during next job cycle. Thus, we leave media in the device.

Thanks.

[UT2015]

But you changed the behaviour. We have used that function a lot in V8. In V8 always all tapes were automatically ejected. In V9 the last tape stays in the drive.

[veremin]

We didn't change anything, as we've had this behaviour since version 7 and it's been always an intended one.

Can you elaborate on what issues do you experience with us an erased medium staying in drive for further use?

Thanks.

[Dima P.]

This might be not related, however several eject and export bugs were fixed in Update 1 – please make sure you are up to date.

[Dylan Davison]

We didn't change anything, as we've had this behaviour since version 7 and it's been always an intended one.

Can you elaborate on what issues do you experience with us an erased medium staying in drive for further use?

Thanks.

1.It is very easy to accidentally fill the source slots in the library when changing tapes if the drives do not eject following inventory/erase jobs. Sometimes, you may run back to back erase or inventory jobs, or inventory followed by erase jobs. Keeping the tapes in the drives is problematic in these cases. Also, if you are scripting this, you should use

Code: Select all

Eject-VBRTapeMedium

instead of

Code: Select all

Eject-VBRTapeDrive

When you are converting from backup exec to Veeam, you may find as we did that you have to LONG erase ALL of your thousands of tapes at 2 hours per tape. To do this, you need to selectively pick un-erased tapes to avoid wasting time long erasing tapes. Doing this in powershell instead of with the GUI is a real hassle, so you are back to needing a way to eject tapes after all erase/inventory jobs.

[veremin]

Understood. However, I don't see us changing this behaviour in the nearest future. Anyway, thank you for providing further information; appreciated.