Backup to Tape No Media in Drive

[fatzge]

Hello, we make a backup to tape job. In the job we made a eject and than a export.
All works fine. But now the tape is offline. If the next backup to disk runs and there is no additional tape in the media set, veeam should take a tape from the free pool.
But he says there is no Media in Drive.
Another problem is the import.
Are there a automatic import job?
Thanks.

[veremin]

There is a known issue that you might get this error when a previous media set continues, but the latest cassette has been already taken offline. In order to bypass this limitation you might either start a new media set or tick “create new media set for every backup session” option. According to plan, this behavior should be fixed in the patch.

Anyway, I strongly recommend to contact our support team, so that they can dig deep into the logs and see whether you experience similar issue or not.

Thanks.

[fatzge]

Okay, thanks.
I am testing and open a call.

[veremin]

It will be appreciated if you update the topic with the support ticket number that we can use for future reference. Thanks.

[fatzge]

see topic.

[martynuk]

I have a Backup to Tape job which runs continously, copying full backups to an HP MSL4048 tape library as they re created. I have set the job to "Export current media set once the job finishes" once per week on a Thursday. I thought that this would also trigger creation of a new media set, but instead I get lots of "No media in drive" errors after the media set has been exported. Looking at the media pool in Veeam, all tapes for the media pool are offline. The media pool properties are set to "Do not create, always continue using current media set". If I also set this to create a new media set each week, I end up getting two new media sets per week.

Is this expected behaviour? Can I only do what I want by setting the weekly media set creation via the media pool properties and not exporting the media set in the backup job? What happens if a backup to tape job is running at the time the media pool creates the new backup set?

I would like to add that I think Veeam 7 is a fantastic product. The new tape support is just what we need, barring a few minor issues like that above - but considering it's your first tape support release, I'm happy if I can work around these issues for now.

[martynuk]

Just to add, the media pool is set to "Add tapes from Free pool automatically when more tapes are required". There are 37 tapes in the Free pool.

[veremin]

Hi, Martin. As mentioned above, this issue might show up, when a previous media set continues, but the latest cassette has been already taken offline.

So, for now I’d recommend creating a new media set each week on Friday morning before the backup job takes place. Though, I’m not sure why you said that adding media set per week resulted in two media sets created. Thanks.

[martynuk]

I can use the Media Pool option to create new media sets each week. This, however, does raise another minor issue with Veeam 7. Creating a new media set via the Pool options does not export the media to the library I/E slots. We can live with this until the bug is fixed, but it would be nice to have an export option there too.

One other request whilst I'm on a roll - is it possible to identify tapes which are Offline but still in the library I/E slots rather than offsite?

[martynuk]

The two media sets were happening because I had both options set - in the job and in the Pool options. That was my bad.

[veremin]

So, you’re saying “Export current media set once the job finishes” option works in case of endless mediaset, meanwhile, it doesn’t in case of weekly mediaset, right? Thanks.

[martynuk]

No, the other way around. With endless media set we get the "No media in drive" errors. The tapes in the media set were marked as offline and exported, but no new tape was allocated from the Free pool. With weekly media set we got two new media sets created each week (presumably one by the pool and one by the tape job), but we didn't get "No media in drive" errors this way. It does seem odd.

I can live with weekly media sets for now and disable the media set option in the job - we just have to export the tapes manually.

[veremin]

I’m not sure I quite follow you on that. The media set concept is related to only media pool, not to tape job, since media set or “media family” is a just a portion of specified media pool. Therefore, I’m still wondering how mediaset could be created twice a week, unless, of course, you’ve selected two days in the media set settings (daily at -> these days -> days). Thanks.

[martynuk]

I must be misunderstanding what "Export current media set once the job finishes" does. You are saying that this doesn't start a new media set? I'm confused.

[veremin]

Yep, new media set is created per settings specified in a given media pool. The said option only exports existing media-set; thus, I was confused by you saying that the job option affected mediasets creation. Thanks.

[martynuk]

Many thanks for the clarification. It would be useful if the media set creation and exporting of the old media set could be done from the same place. eg. "Create new media set and export old one". This could help to avoid the "No media in drive" situation that we were having where the tape job exports the set and then runs again before the pool has created a new set.

[veremin]

As far as I know, this issue should be fixed in the foreseeing future, so, you wouldn’t be affected by it any longer. Anyway, thanks for the feedback; much appreciated.