What happens to multi-tape backups if i restart a tape job after marking a tape as free?

[mkretzer]

Hello,

we know we can continue/retry by just re-starting a tape backup after a tape failure. Also, if we want data written to a faulty tape re-written we just have to mark that tape as free and remove it.

But since we have some VMs > 30 TB: What happens if the tape that we have marked as free has only a part of a larger VM, spanned over multiple tapes? Will that backup be re-written completely or will just the "missing" segment be re-written?

Markus

[david.domask]

Hi Markus,

The entire transfer will need to restart, so the existing tapes with parts of the backup will effectively be useless until marked as free / erased.

[mkretzer]

Ok - Feature Request: Only write the part that is missing