Discussions related to exporting backups to tape and backing up directly to tape.
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PeteMan
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Unable to Continue using Existing Tapes?

Post by PeteMan »

Hello - I have a monthly full backup scheduled and that is working fine using new tapes.

I am also doing a daily backup of the same files so an Incremental one, I have one tape for each day of the week Sun - Sat, I am able to complete the first week of backups using these tapes but when I try to use one of the Daily Tapes again the system will not use it, it will only work when I put a new tape in. I am sure this is an error on my part / setting that I am missing in the pool or something?

To be clear there is plenty of free space on each of the tapes and not many items change on a daily basis.

Also I am not clear on what happens when I set a tape to expire will this force all of the data that was on it to be rewritten since the last full backup? If not is there a way to do this?
soncscy
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Re: Unable to Continue using Existing Tapes?

Post by soncscy » 1 person likes this post

Hey Peter,

Likely this is because of the media sets closing when you swap the tapes. Give the article a read on this and understand the purpose of a media set. Once I got this, Veeam Tape became far more predictable.

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=100

Veeam's strategy is a bit more opportunistic as I get it than other tape solutions, so while you are probably used to "This day, this tape", Veeam's backup files are dependent on the immediately preceding one (incremental backups) so this strategy is compatible, naturally.

You can do what you want, but as I get it, you need:

1. N media pools where N = number of tapes you plan to rotate like this and ensure that each day's tape is the only one in there
2. N jobs
3. Add each of the same sources to each job
4. Schedule the jobs to only run on their defined day

I get it seems like a lot, but it's really not after the initial set up and it does exactly what you want, the only cost being some clicks for a few minutes (If you can, just clone each job, rename it appropriately, point it at the right media pool, and call it a day)

Alternatively, you can just do file to tape full backups every day of the entire chain as is -- it's a bit clumsy, but it's probably closer to the tape backups you're used to in every way. You lose out a bit on some of the tape management features, but if a single job gives you peace of mind, then this is the way.
TaylorB
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Re: Unable to Continue using Existing Tapes?

Post by TaylorB » 1 person likes this post

When you look at media info for those tapes, do they show expired? My guess is that they are still protected. A tape cannot be overwritten to again until it is expired. If you want to overwrite your tapes each week, then you would want to set the expiration for your media pool to 1 week. But I think the default is never overwrite

Expiration means you don't care about the data on the tape anymore and want the tape to be overwritten. Veeam will treat expired tapes as if they are new tapes.

The media set options the above poster talked about can let you write multiple days of backups onto a tape without overwriting old data as long as you have room. So that may help you optimize your tape usage as well.
PeteMan
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Re: Unable to Continue using Existing Tapes?

Post by PeteMan »

Thank you Taylor - Question about tapes expiration... If / when a tape is expired does the data that was on it get written again to a new tape. So lets say I have 4 Weeks ago backup, I have that tape expire in 4 weeks will those files get backed up again to a new tape?

That said I had something odd happen, I tried running my backup again using a tape I used before and this time for whatever reason it worked, added the new files / folders to the existing tape. Not sure what was different.

I haven't set any expiration of the tapes as you mentioned above, not sure why this tape worked while the other attempts did not.
TaylorB
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Re: Unable to Continue using Existing Tapes?

Post by TaylorB » 1 person likes this post

No, the data on the tape is overwritten. You should not set the tape to expire until you no longer need the data on the tape.

If that data still exists on disk, a new version of it will get backed up and end up on tape. But your old version from the expired tapes will be deleted and overwritten.
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