using "create new media set for every backup session"

[bzooz1]

Case# 00926713

We run incremental disk backups M-Th along with the mapped tape backup each day. We then run full disk backups on Friday, and also the mapped tape backup plan. Our disk retention settings are 25 restore points, with tape retention set at Do No Protect.." Media Set settings are "create new media set for every backup session. I will now explain below what happened during our Friday full backups, and the following Monday incremental backups. We have just a 1 tape, stand alone drive.

It looks like on Friday 5-22, our Week 4 tape must have deleted the previous Week 4 backup of 4-24 off of the tape because of the "create new media set for every backup session" setting, then it performed the regularly scheduled full backup, therefore the Week 4 tape then only contained the current 5-22 full backup.

On Monday our disk incremental plan ran, but when the mapped incremental tape plan started, it stated "tape currently in drive cannot be used for backup". Veeam was wanting to first write to tape, the previous Week 4 4-24 full backup that was erased during the 5-22 full tape backup plan run. Is this assessment correct for what is happening? I inserted a previously unused tape, because I wasn't sure what was going on, which Veeam immediately moved to the correct pool and the tape plan took off and was successful. Should I have reinserted the Week 4 tape here, or would that just have caused the erasure of the tape again because of the "create new media set..." setting?

One possible solution = although Veeam wants to delete all contents on the tape do to the "create new media set...." setting, is there a way for it to copy them back along with the current full backup it is scheduled to run? Maybe there are other easier ways to set up our tape backups that are more efficient, but if Veeam can just copy them back during that same session, I think all would be well.

Thanks for the help.

[Dima P.]

Hello bzooz1,

Did support team find any clues in your VBR logs? Thanks

[bzooz1]

I guess what I was looking for in my case was confirmation that my assessment of what was happening was correct, and what to do. The last paragraph of my initial topic comment above was asking if there is a way for Veeam to copy back that erased archive during the current backup session, thus resulting in the Weekly tape having the current archive just run, and the previous one that got erased due to the "create new media set...." setting.

It seems like support is confirming my assessment by referencing articles on tape behavior, although the words "yes you are correct" have not been used yet. I also asked them the above question on having Veeam copy back the erased archive.

[bzooz1]

Per Support: "Adding the file back to tape would not be something that could be accomplished automatically in Veeam. You could create a file to tape job to pick up the file and write it back to tape. As for the scripting side, Veeam does not create script nor do we support them. But you can create scripts for a good amount of tasks that you would like to do within Veeam. You can then set them to run via pre/post job functions."

Is it possible to run a script that would indeed copy back this recently deleted vbk, and also run the scheduled vbk backup to that same tape, even with the Weekly tapes set at "create new media set...." setting?

[bzooz1]

Is it possible to run a script that would indeed copy back this recently deleted vbk, and also run the scheduled vbk backup to that same tape, even with the Weekly tapes set at "create new media set...." setting?

[veremin]

With "create new media set...." option a new media set will be created each time tape jobs run, those would required different tapes. Thanks.

[bzooz1]

In other words, having a script run during this tape backup plan, is in essence a second run of the plan, resulting in the tape being erased again?

[Dima P.]

Hello bzooz1,

I am sorry for the delay. So you want to keep the previous .vbk but why you want to overwrite the tape media every time instead of appending new data to the same tape and overwrite it only when there is no free space left?

[bzooz1]

Hey, no problem. Support did explain the reasoning behind our initial issue. It had to deal with the mapped tape plan always needing to run a virtual full if no active full is scheduled, which is what we caused by unchecking the Friday Weekly full disk backup. They basically said we could continue to uncheck the Friday Weekly full disk backup whenever we run a monthly on that Friday instead, but we should then just "trick" the Veeam scheduling, by changing the day the virtual full backup is set to run, then changing it back, since the virtual full backup setting cannot be turned off. I think this should suffice for now.

I am not sure if I have a good answer for your question of why we are using the "create new media set..." setting, except that, and correct me if I'm wrong, it seems much cleaner to do so. It is nice to know each Friday Weekly full is on one tape only, and is completed during that Friday run. From my understanding, if we append to the tapes instead, while doing a Friday Weekly full, that tape could get full, and require a second tape to finish the backup, which we couldn't do until the following Monday since we only have a single tape drive, and no one is available to change tapes on weekends. Thus we actually wouldn't have the most recent full backup until the next Monday, instead of completing on that same last Friday. It seems there is just too much manual tape changing required.

Please feel free to educate me on my inaccuracies. Thanks for all the help.

[veremin]

Hey, no problem. Support did explain the reasoning behind our initial issue. It had to deal with the mapped tape plan always needing to run a virtual full if no active full is scheduled, which is what we caused by unchecking the Friday Weekly full disk backup. They basically said we could continue to uncheck the Friday Weekly full disk backup whenever we run a monthly on that Friday instead, but we should then just "trick" the Veeam scheduling, by changing the day the virtual full backup is set to run, then changing it back, since the virtual full backup setting cannot be turned off. I think this should suffice for now.

You can probably just disable daily job whenever its overlaps with monthly one. It can be achieved via simple PS script scheduled via Windows Task Scheduler.

[bzooz1]

Thanks for that v.E

[veremin]

Job can be enabled and disabled with the use of this pair of commandlets (Enable-VBRJob, Disable-VBRJob); might be worth reviewing. Thanks.