Media rotation scheme with 8-tape drive

[upplepop]

I am having trouble with my media rotation scheme. I am using the '5-day with full backup on Friday, w/ GFS' scheme included in ARCserve version 11. I had the software automatically set up the Media Pools. I use an 8-tape autoloader with the eighth slot containing a cleaning tape.

I would like to have 4 tapes labeled as Monday, Tuesday, Wed. and Thurs. with the backups being performed on each day being performed on the respective tape. The Friday backup would be done on a tape that changes every week (like week2, week3, month2, etc.). This way, every other week or so, I would put in a couple of blank tapes that would be used for the Full Friday backups. This would make locating the tape needed for restore jobs easy to do because I can put labels on the actual tapes.

Aside from the daily backup, I also have a job that backups a database several times a day. Also, all of the day's backups are able fit on a single tape.

The problem is that ARCserve does not always backup on the appropriate tape. Sometimes it will backup on the same tape as last week as intended (i.e. on Thursday, it blanks & writes on last week's Thursday tape), but other times it will use a Blank tape or another day's tape.

Does anyone know how to resolve this problem? Perhaps some of you can suggest a better media rotation method that I can use with an 8-tape autoloader.

 

[vschumpy]

Use a custom rotation for your mon-fri daily and custom repeat for the others.

 

[upplepop]

So how do I set up the custom rotation? Do I still need media pools?

 

[vschumpy]

In the schedule tab select custom rotation - click on the context sensitive help there for more information.

 

[upplepop]

But how do I specify which tape to back up on? i.e. on Tuesday, back up onto the TUESDAY tape. The only way I can see doing this is setting up a job for each day and specifying the tape in the Destination tab.
The big problem with this is the Friday backup, which is done on a different tape every week (WEEK2, WEEK3, MONTH2, QUARTER3, etc.) I would have to set up a job for each of these. There has to be a less complex method.