Adding a physical tape to a media pool

[JackT]

Hi,
I have a physical tape that I want to add to a media pool, how do I do that?
Thanks

[Mildur]

Hi Jack

You have to put the tape into the tape drive, do a tape inventory (if it's not a new tape), and assign it to a media pool. If there is already foreign data on the tape, you can erase it first.

Thanks
Fabian

[JackT]

Hi,
Thank you, that really helped. There's a couple tapes that have "expired", what does that mean? Is it the end of the retention period and can I use it again?

[Mildur]

Hi Jack

Your welcome.
An expired tape means, that the retention is over. The data is not deleted yet.
When the next tape jobs starts, it looks at the media pool if there is an expired tape available.
Veeam then erases the data on an expired tape and use it to write the job.

[JackT]

Alright, thanks again
Last questions, how do I see when the last ones have been used?
And what is the general life-cycle for a tape?

[Mildur]

Hi Jack

You can see the last written tape in the console. There is a column with that information.

Tandberg talks about 260 full backups written per tape and a life cycle of 30 years:
https://ftp1.overlandtandberg.com/publi ... dia_US.pdf

Thanks
Fabian