GFS - Prefer Append?

[ekisner]

For us, tapes are long term recovery only. In the event of a building-loss (ie the unplanned destruction of our tape backups) it's relatively moot. We have archival and DR stored at a CoLo already, albeit with much fewer restore options (lots of recent ones, and a few archival ones just in case).

Our primary tape backups are entirely for "joe schmoe deleted such and such, can we have it back?" moments. Nothing even gets transported off-site.

We recently upgraded from an LTO5 setup to an LTO7 setup. The storage increase is... dramatic. As such, when our weekly job finishes, there's a great deal of tape left at the end of the job. It appears that the tape is then marked with a retention and it's off limits until that retention period expires.

What I myself am looking for is an ability to append multiple weekly iterations to the same tapes, where they would fit. For example, in a situation where 4 weeks of backups would fit on two tapes:

Code: Select all

Tape 1
<>-----------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------|-----------------<>
Start                     Week 1                                  Week 2                          Week 3        EOT

Tape 2
<>-------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<>
Start     Week 3 Continued                        Week 4                                                      EOT

Versus what appears to be the current implementation:

Code: Select all

Tape 1
<>---------------------------------------------------------|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<>
Start              Week 1                                                    Empty                               EOT

Tape 2
<>---------------------------------------------------------|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<>
Start              Week 2                                                    Empty                               EOT

Tape 3
<>---------------------------------------------------------|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<>
Start              Week 3                                                    Empty                               EOT

Tape 4
<>---------------------------------------------------------|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<>
Start              Week 4                                                    Empty                               EOT

It would be much more tape-efficient in our environment.

[PTide]

Hi,

It seems that "Append backup files to incomplete tapes checkbox is what you are looking for. Did you check it?

Thanks

[ekisner]

Nope, that is checked.

That said, it was recently set up. I don't know if it will start appending to tape now that there are no additional tapes to pull from the library for that media set, it has just pulled its last tape from the weekly set.

[veremin]

As stated in User Guide Pavel's referenced, with this option in place a GFS backup to tape job should take the latest incomplete tape and append data to it, unless of course the latest tape has been taken offline.

Select Append backup files to incomplete tapes if you want to write the next backup set to the tape where the previous backup set was written.

If that doesn't happen in your case, open a ticket with our support team.

Thanks.