User Guide Clarification: GFS Mediaset IDs and Append Backup Sets

[csydas]

Hopefully a simple one with a quick and easy clarification:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... l?ver=95u4

Step 4 talks about appending Backup Sets to previous tapes, but in actuality, appears to affect the MediaSet labelling as well, in that Veeam uses the original Mediaset label instead of generating a new one. (For example, if I use the %id% + %date% suffixes and use the Append option starting on January 1st 2019 for my weeklies, I should expect:

Weekly #1 01.01.2019
Weekly #2 01.01.2019
Weekly #3 01.01.2019
...

Since it's just appending, right?

But with Append disabled, I should see:

Weekly #1 01.01.2019
Weekly #2 08.01.2019
Weekly #3 15.01.2019
...

This seems logical to me, but I want to make sure I got the logical and understanding right:

1. The GFS Mediasets should be thought of as some sort of "über-mediaset" and each run produces "sub-Mediaset", the sub-mediaset being what we traditionally think of as mediasets. The über-mediaset is not a literal mediaset, but a collection of many mediasets that meet the defined period
2. In step 4, while it talks about Backup Sets, in fact the Append Option also affects the sub-Mediaset creation and the mediaset labeling.

Do I have the behavior right here or am I just fundamentally misunderstanding the mediaset labelling option in GFS? We're mostly just trying to make sense of an oddity that we've gotten working the way we want (mostly), but just trying to make sure that there isn't a better way to do it.

Is there a way to use the Append option AND increment the date for the mediaset label with GFS?

[lyapkost]

Hi Harvey. In short: the media set name doesn't change throughout the whole media set.

If Append option is enabled, job normally doesn't create new media set (leave aside case when one enables parallel processing which was disabled before). So in your first example we expect:
Weekly #1 01.01.2019 (tape sequence number 1)
Weekly #1 01.01.2019 (tape sequence number 2)
Weekly #1 01.01.2019 (tape sequence number 3)
...

If Append is disabled tape job opens new media set at the beginning of each run, increments Id in it's name and sets current date/time accrodint to the template. This may also happen because of the other reasons such as: the last tape of the previous media set is protected/offline/became retired.

[csydas]

Got it! This fits with my mental model then.

Thank you Konstantin!