Tape behavior questions

[marieelieg]

Hello dears, I have a few question about tape behavior in Veeam.

1- If a tape contains the following:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Backup set 1 | Backup set 2 | Backup set 3 | Backup set 4 | Tape job runs once a week with retention 2 weeks
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
When we come to Week 3, Backup set 1 should be expired and can be overwritten. And when we come to week 4, the same can be said to Backup set 2.
In week 3, will the tape job override Backup set 1? And in week 4, will the tape job override Backup set 2?
If not what will it do exactly?

2- What is the Veeam standard number of writes or duration that a tape can handle before it might become corrupted? Can it be seen from the Veeam Console?
For example, DPM can show you that this tape has data written on it 50/250 times. Is this doable using Veeam?

3- Can Veeam copy data from a tape to another tape directly?

Thank you everyone in advance

[Shestakov]

1. The tape will be protected from overwriting until all media sets retention is not expired.
2. It depends on used writer and tapes. Number of writes is not shown on the Veeam console, however we will take that request into account.
3. Tape-to-tape is not supported in current version. Could you describe your use case?
Thanks!

[marieelieg]

Hi Shestakov, thank you for your reply.

1. The tape will be protected from overwriting until all media sets retention is not expired.

I think you mean "is expired".

Tape-to-tape is not supported in current version. Could you describe your use case?

Let's say that I have data on tape A, and this tape has exceeded the max number of writes. I want to copy the data from tape A to tape B and throw away the no-longer-usable tape A.

Will tape-to-tape be available in future versions?

Thanks!

[Shestakov]

In the context it means same thing - while the media set is not expired, it`s protected from overwriting.
As for tape-to-tape feature, as far as I know it`s not planned for v10 as there were not a lot of requests(but yours is taken into account). The use case is clear, but it doesn`t appear often, plus there is an easy workaround to restore files on disk and write them on new tapes.
Thanks!