One Drive/rotation/meda pools/wasted tape/frustration....

[StevenClary]

I am having some frustration trying to get my environment working as well. We too have a stand alone drive.

I don't have a grasp on how to set things up so that they run smoothly and I can just walk in the server room once or twice a day and swap tapes.

Please comment on what I think have found out:

I have to use media pools for rotation schemes (right?). If I don't use pools, I end up having to stop jobs, free up the tape drive, format a new tape, and restart the job. Of course this is unacceptable.

What I had hoped would happen is that the current tape in the drive would be filled up, and then just simply ask for the next tape in the pool. What I think I am seeing is that if one job finishes (and perhaps it only used a 1/4 of the tape) and a new one starts, it wants a new tape (even though there is plenty of room to append on the first tape and they are both in the same media pool). Does this mean I might have to make one HUGE job out of my 6 different servers?

Should I do incrementals/differentials on the same media pool?

I think Im going lunch for the person who helps me sort this out. Feel free to contact me directly: Steve_clary@urmc.rochester.edu.

 

[vschumpy]

Set your job to append rather than overwrite - if you are using a custom repeat job you do this in global options, if you are using a rotation (even without a media pool) you do this in the rotation tab.

Personally I tend to group servers in backup jobs, but if I could I would put all of the servers in the same backup job, yes - it's actually a lot easier as you only have 1 lot of settings to set - unless of course you need different ones depending on what servers you are backing up.