Need to append data on existing Tape

[Jew Loon]

Hi everyone. I had an issue whereby my tape job does not append on the existing tape after upgraded to version 9.. I had no issue on version 8...
We have daily backup tape job (Mon-Fri). After the data complete writing on the tape, We send the tape to offsite (daily). One week after, we will get back all the tape (Mon-Fri) and reuse it. Tape still have a lot of free capacity. For some reason, veeam is asking to "Insert a valid tape...."

Here is my current media pool setting suggest by veeam support:-
- Media Set (Do not Create, always continue using current media set)
- Retention (Never overwrite Data)

Previous version 8 I had my setting below:-
- Media Set (Do not Create, always continue using current media set)
- Retention (Do not protect data (cyclically overwrite tapes as required))
I cannot set the media set to this setting in version 9 because it erase everything on tape before writing a new data onto it.

My request is simple, how to append data on old tape.

Please help.

[Dima P.]

Hello Jew Loon.

After the tape is exported most likely current media set gets closed but next tape job run. Whenever your are trying to append to the previously written tape Veeam B&R simply cannot reopen the closed media set, thus is asking your for another tape media. If I am not mistaken we have this behavior since the day one of tape support being released, but to get you more details debug log analysis is required. If you want to continue investigation please open the support case and share the case ID. Thank you in advance.

[Jew Loon]

Thanks Dima,

Is there any setting/config to set the media "always open" even we export it?

[lyapkost]

Hi. Media set is closed when a job pointed to the same media pool starts and is unable to append backup to the last written tape (it can be offline, write protected etc). In that case the job opens a new media set and closes the previous one. To prevent media set from being closed make sure no tape jobs to the same media pool started before exported tapes were inserted back to the library.