Tape is still protected when retention time has expired

[maze]

Hello,

I've noticed I need to unprotect some (maybe all, not tested yet) tapes manually when their retention time have been expired. In my understanding this should be done automatically, as soon as their retention time expires, shouldn't it?
I have set the retention time for 5 weeks. The tapes will be exported when a backup set is completly written (1 Full, 6 Incremental, all on the same tape) and imported again when their expiration date expires (the tapes are shown in the column "Expires in" as "expired"). I do not protect tapes manuelly.

Best regards,

Martin

(I did not open a case yet, just to clear the process first - maybe my understanding is wrong)

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums.

That depends on the setting of the media pool. If for example 10 weekly protection were configured and only 4 weeks retention, then the situation you see can happen

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110

Best regards,
Hannes

[maze]

Hello Hannes,

many thanks for your fast reply. The tape data retention policy is set to protect data for 5 weeks (configured in the media pool). I could not find an option to set the "10 weekly protection" of your example which maybe I have to change. I only found the option to protect a tape manually.

[HannesK]

Hello,
ah sorry, somehow I mixed up a backup job retention with Hardened Repository immutability and how tape jobs work. Please forget everything I wrote above

Tapes "write protection" expires at the "Expires in" column date. If that is over, the tape should be writeable.

The protect is a manual step. If you say your tapes become "protected" for unknown reason, I recommend to check with support. Please post the case number for reference.

Thanks,
Hannes

[maze]

Hello Hannes,

thank you very much for your help. I guess I have found the right check box: "Protect all tapes moved to this media vault automatically" was enabled (is an option of the Vault properties). I could not test it yet, but I guess this option will enable the protection (padlock icon) but it won't be disabled again when the expiration time is over.

Best,

Martin

[Dima P.]

Martin,

This option basically tells Veeam B&R to never erase the tape media and it overrides the retention set for the tape in the media pool. Cheers!

[maze]

Hello Dmitry,

many thanks for explanation. Sometimes little check boxes have huge impacts.

I have verified: now it works as expected and the tapes won't be protected anymore.

Cheers!