Waiting for tape?

[MikeLeone]

Hello. I am new to Veeam, but have been a long time EMC Networker user, so I am familiar with backup software, just not sure how to get Veeam to do what I need.

v11.0.1

I use a Data Domain as backup repository, and have a Quantum Scalar i3 tape library. All good so far - I have a backup job that is correctly writing to the DD. But now I need to copy that data to tape, for offsite storage (Networker refers to this as "cloning").

Anyway, I have loaded in 5 tapes, assigned them to a pool of my choosing. I created a tape job. I added the name of the backup to DD job, chose my media pool. The pool is set to "Media Set: Do not create, always continue". Retention is set to "Never overwrite" (for now), parallel processing 2 drives (out of 3 total in the library). Archive incremental backups to tape, using same pool. Eject media upon completion. At the moment, it doesn't start automatically.

that should be all good, I thought. I have 3 tapes in the pool I erased, and then marked as free, just to be sure. It looks like it's writing to 2 tapes (2 are loaded), but the job is sitting there at "Waiting tape". And I don't know why, I have tapes in the pool that are free. It's 99% done, I don't understand what I forgot, to get it to just finish.

I'm misunderstanding something simple, but what? Why isn't it ejecting out whatever tape it's filled up, and just getting one of the others in the pool? Especially since I erased the tapes, and marked them as free? Doesn't that make them fair game for any job that wants a tape from that pool?

(I can't open a case with support yet, I'm still waiting for my account to be added to the company as able to open cases)

Thanks

[karsten123]

you have to move it to the Free media pool. did you do that?

[MikeLeone]

Yes, all 3 tapes were erased, then marked as "Free", all in the same media pool as the job. All show free capacity of 2.3TB each.
No change - job still sitting there at "Waiting tape". It's not unloading a tape drive and loading a new tape, even tho there are 3 available in the pool, all marked as "Free" which have capacity.

[karsten123]

you have to move it to the Free media pool. did you do that?

[MikeLeone]

I don't have a "Free Media Pool". Am I supposed to create one?

[MikeLeone]

I had no "Free" media pool. I did mark the tapes as "free". However, what I hadn't done was "Move to Free" - which I thought I couldn't do, because there was no target pool called "Free". However, turns out, when you say "Move to Free", and "Free" doesn't exist, it just creates it for you. Docs say "Free" is a system pool, and not able to be deleted (which I then assumed mean I couldn't just create it like a normal pool, either). Turns out, I either never had one, or you can delete it ... and if you don't have one, you can just move a tape to that non-existent pool, and it creates it for you. LOL