Backup to tape - best strategy for

[HErceg]

Hi,

I don't have experience with tapes so I was wondering what would be best approach for backing up to achieve maximum tape usage.I would like to use 5 tapes, and avoid using several tapes for full backups only.
Full backup jobs are running on different days, for example VM01 - Monday, VM02 - Tuesday... so idea is to copy it that way to tape.In other words daily tapes would contain full backups if it was scheduled via backup job.
Is it doable?

I tried it via Media pool but seems to me it is only copying data that is available from source BJ?Basically it keeps same retention.

[Dima P.]

Hello Hrvoje,

I don't have experience with tapes so I was wondering what would be best approach for backing up to achieve maximum tape usage.I would like to use 5 tapes, and avoid using several tapes for full backups only.

In the media pool properties you need to set 'Do not create, always continue using current media set for media set creation option' to append data to tapes.

Full backup jobs are running on different days, for example VM01 - Monday, VM02 - Tuesday... so idea is to copy it that way to tape.

That's ok, all you need to do is to enable the full backups for the backup to tape job.

I tried it via Media pool but seems to me it is only copying data that is available from source BJ?

Backup to tape processes backups from disk i.e. if you have a full backup to tape out at the scheduled day - tape job will pick it up.

Basically it keeps same retention.

Retention for tape is different - you enable in the media pool, basically say how much time to keep written media with all it's content.

Here is the link to the Tape Help Center - Tape Devices Support. Cheers!

[HErceg]

Hi Dima,

I used option "Do not create, always continue using current media set for media set creation option", but seems I didn't enabled full backups.Strange, I was certain I did it.
Regardless of that option Veeam often created new media sets.

Few days ago I changed from Media Pool to GFS Media pool, so I can't see details.From what I can remember Veeam made full backups every Friday, but that still doesn't explain why old backups were removed every 20-30 days, while tapes were mostly unused.Out of 2,5 TB at least 1,8 was free and data was deleted.

Anyway, I will monitor situation and get back to you.

[Dima P.]

hanged from Media Pool to GFS Media pool, so I can't see details.From what I can remember Veeam made full backups every Friday, but that still doesn't explain why old backups were removed every 20-30 days, while tapes were mostly unused.Out of 2,5 TB at least 1,8 was free and data was deleted

For GFS the settings for media set creation are pretty much the same: you instruct the job either to append data to tape or open new media set every job run. Just to make sure we are on the same page: retention is set per tape and not per backup, so if you say keep tape for 30 days it will be reused only after 30 days. Cheers!