Tape Overwrite.

[ronaldw]

Hello,

We are running Veeam 7.0.0.871.
We seem to have an issue with the way Veeam decides whethether to overwrite a tape or not.

According to Veeam support, Veeam will NEVER overwrite a tape if it isn't 100% full.
Imagine my tape sizes are 400 gigabytes, and my backup is 350 gigabytes. It will always (some day) append on that tape, and then it appends 50 gigabytes, and asks for a new tape.

My logic isn't flawed here right? i did understand this correctly ?

In my opinion, overwriting of tapes which don't hold an overwrite protection anymore (due to the settings of the mediaset), is mandatory.

I've seen some more topics around this issue, and people were talking about a script which would clear the tape before the Veeam job starts.
Can someone share my a script which does just that ?

[veremin]

Can you provide a ticket number, because the referenced statement doesn't seem to be right? May be they were talking about your particular case? Like with the specified settings the data will be always appended, not overwritten? What retention and mediaset creation settings does your media pool have? Thanks.

[ronaldw]

Hello, i am talking about Case # 00645709. I also have an e-mail from support, stating that overwrite only happens if a tape is full.
This is a snippet from this e-mail.

We have checked log files and settings, everything was set correctly and overwrite data.
But according to Veeam algorithm we only overwrite media set if it is full. If it is still have some space we will start to write data there (append to previous) and after the media set will be full we will get another one to continue.

My configuration looks like this:

Media set: Create new media set for every backup session.
Retention: Do no protect data (Cyclically overwrite tapes as required)

[veremin]

Since I can't find you original email, I want to clarify situation - you have one medium inserted inside a device, and you want for it to be cyclically overwritten during each backup session, right? You've specified the given settings, but a medium is still being appended, rather than overwritten? Thanks.

[ronaldw]

What we want is really simple.

We have a single backup device (LTO3) no library or anything.
We make a daily incremental backup. and this also gets copied to tape with a backup copy job
We have around 25 tapes. An employee will place a new tape daily.

Indeed tapes don't get overwritten. So oftenly i have to let the customer place new tapes.
Would the tape have been overwritten, the backup would of had fit on one tape.

[foggy]

With the specified settings tapes should be overwritten. I recommend escalating your case to a higher tier for further investigation.