Discussions related to exporting backups to tape and backing up directly to tape.
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Max93
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What do I need the "Media Set" setting for?

Post by Max93 »

Hello everyone,

I have already read through the Help Center, but I still don't fully understand the purpose of the Media Sets.

Could you perhaps provide one or two examples to help me grasp the concept?

That would be great :!:
david.domask
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Re: What do I need the "Media Set" setting for?

Post by david.domask »

Hi Max,

Media Sets act as a purely logical entity allowing you to organize your tapes in a way which is convenient for you. Sorry to just dump an FAQ link, but we recently updated our Tape FAQ (ctrl+f 'Media Sets') to include some expanded explanations on media sets as it can seem daunting, but the concept is purely based on your organizational preferences.

Basically, there is no practical impact on the actual backup process except that a new media set must start with an empty tape; if you're shipping your tapes off-site for example, you might want to always ship a set of tapes per week, and you can organize them by media set to make it more simple to know which tapes belong to which week.

If you would, check out that section and the link for a more elaborate explanation, and let us know if that helps clear it up.
David Domask | Product Management: Principal Analyst
Max93
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Re: What do I need the "Media Set" setting for?

Post by Max93 » 1 person likes this post

Hello David,

thank you very much for the information and the link. Now I understand the Media Set feature better :wink:

Best regards,
Max
david.domask
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Re: What do I need the "Media Set" setting for?

Post by david.domask »

Always welcome! Good luck and enjoy tape :)
David Domask | Product Management: Principal Analyst
davide.depaoli
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Re: What do I need the "Media Set" setting for?

Post by davide.depaoli »

Hi all,
I am linking to this discussion to ask if the configuration I am doing is correct (I have always had trouble understanding the logic of tape backups, even more so as in this situation if the tape needs to be replaced every day).

Environment:
Customer with single LTO-8 tape drive.
VMware infrastructure
on Datastore about 2TB VMs
on disk backup (incremental) about 40GB daily (1,6x dedup, 2,2x compression)
on tape backup (full+incremental) about 620GB daily (mon/fri).

Customer every day replace tape in drive to put it in a safe place and cycling always the same 5 tapes.

I have configured tape infrastructure as:
Standard Media Pool:
Monday --> monday tape
Tuesday --> tuesday tape
Wednesday --> wednesday tape
Thursday --> thursday tape
Friday --> friday tape

Media set: do not create, always continue using current media set
Retention: never overwrite data

Five tape backup jobs getting tape from corresponding media pool (monday, tuesday, etc...)
Tape backup job get data from disk backup job
On tape incremental + latest full backup chain

Note: if @Vitaly read this post, I am the person was open some day ago the case #07449979

Thanks in advance
Best regards
Davide
david.domask
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Re: What do I need the "Media Set" setting for?

Post by david.domask » 1 person likes this post

Hi Davide,

If your goal is to use a specific tape for each day, then yes, that will work. We have the same configuration listed in our Tape FAQ here on the forums (last Q&A).

I checked the case quick and I think the Support Engineer slightly misunderstood the question though -- since your goal is a specific tape for each day of the week and to continue the same tape on the next week, your Media Pool should be set to "Do not create, always continue".

So I think your configuration as written looks good!
David Domask | Product Management: Principal Analyst
davide.depaoli
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Re: What do I need the "Media Set" setting for?

Post by davide.depaoli »

Hi David,
thank you for confirmation.
We try the loop for a week and eventually make any necessary adjustments.

Kind regards
Davide
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