Save Set Versus Scratch Set

[rrkano]

I have nightly incrementals that run and a full backup that runs on Friday's. I have a Compaq TL800, Arcserve 9.1 and a Windows 2003 Server. My tapes are labeled as follows: TRI001 through TRI008. I have them assinged to a Rotation.

Sometimes, on my full backup, it will stop and say that it can't find blank media or a specific media to continue the job. When I look in the Save set, my TRI001-TRI008 are assinged to the Save Set...when I move them back to the Scratch Set the job continues. Why are they getting moved to the Save Set...and is that what it should be doing?

 

[vschumpy]

Look at the media pools and look at the retention criteria (ie the minimum number of tapes in the save set that are preserved). Sounds like you do not have enough physical tapes to run the rotation.

 

[rrkano]

Okay thanks. The Minimum # of media in the Save set is 5, and the Retention Time is 6 days. I swap tape sets every week. I have two sets of tapes that I rotate, and there are 9 slots in my DLT Tape Library...so what am I doing wrong?

 

[vschumpy]

Do any of your tapes span to a second tape? In which case this would mean that you stil don't have enough tapes for the rotation. I presume you use the last slot in the library for a cleaning tape also right?

 

[rrkano]

Yes, the last slot has a cleaning tape in it. I don't think any of the tapes span to a second tape. They all have their own barcodes.

 

[vschumpy]

Are you getting any database errors eg failed to login/add record to database when ARCserve tries to update the database?

 

[rrkano]

No, no database errors. Another thing that happens, is that when I swap tape sets (as I do every Monday), the backup job for that day fails because it can't find the tape. So, I have to go assign all of the tapes to the Scratch set and run the backup manually.

Perhaps I'm doing this incorrectly.

 

[vschumpy]

it still sounds like you don't have enough physical tapes to use in the rotation, movement of tapes between the save and scratch sets should be automatic and require no intervention.

 

[rrkano]

Sorry for taking so long in between responses. What are my options at this point? My tape Library holds 8 tapes plus a cleaning tape. I have 2 sets of 8 tapes that I rotate every week. What would you suggest I do?

Thanks for your help.