Unable to allocate new media for backup... 2

[pctekkk]

How do you get around this message/error:
" Unable to allocate new media for backup, storage unit has none available(96) "

We have a 14 tape autoloader and just loaded it last week w/ previous used tapes, how can we get around this error w/out reloading new tapes, can we erase other tapes before use so the device will allow to overwrite ?

we had a consultant install and were told we can reuse tapes after 1 month(is the overwrite protection)
so we have but looks like tapes still have data and will not allow to overwrite?
thanks for any help

 

[OHWS]

You have a couple of diffent options depending on your retention needs. If you do not need the data for one month change the retention level in your backup policies to expire after the retention level you feel that you need. Your issue may NOT be that you do not have tapes available, but that the tapes that are available do not meet your backup configuration requirements such as a different retention level and/or different Volume pool being requested and you do not have any scratch tapes available. Veritas software by default will not mix different retentions on the same tape. If you absolutely now you do not need a few of the tapes you can run the bpexpdate command on the tapes and scratch them. Make sure you have your scratch pool configured correctly (Do not believe there is a scratch pool by default it treats the Netbackup pool as scratch, not positive about this, it's been a long time since I have had to work with this.) Hope this helps!

 

[pctekkk]

how/what are the steps to run
bpexpdate ???
i'm total newbee at this and had consultant set this
up long time ago(ok 9months ago)

 

[creakyjoe]

...in which case it's probably best you explore the scratch pool feature first. it's very easy to setup if you either do a web search or look in the manuals. That way any tapes you have free will be returned to the scratch pool automatically..

 

[Vela]

Another thing to consider is that as long as there are valid images on a tape Veritas won't re-allocate the tape.

I would also make sure the 1 month retention is ok and that you have that in writing with an SLA signed in case someone askes for data from 9 mths ago.

Veritas will, by default use the Netbackup pool as scratch so you'll need to create the scratch pool if it's not already there.

I don't know what OS your master is on, but if it's Unix
#bpexpdate ?
This will give you usage info


Here's the Unix version to expire a tape, and it might take 20-30min to expire the whole tape depending on the amount of data-

#bpexpdate -m (mediaid) -d 0


Ryan

 

[langleymass]

Go into a DOS prompt. Go to X:\program files\veritas\netbackup\bin\admincmd. Find the command BPEXPDATE. Enter that with two options. Here is an example:

BPEXPDATE -M 000444 -D 0

In this, the 000444 is the media number. The D apparently just means to delete.

 

[pctekkk]

i'm in windows 2000.
so i have to run that command on every single tape ??

also i do have scratch w/ nothing in there
but also netbackup and Data pool
my Data pool has all the tapes listed

 

[Vela]

So i have to run that command on every single tape ??

You'll run this on any single tape you want to expire so you can reuse it.

Just make sure of one thing. What volume tape pool in failing with the 96 error codes?
Make sure that whatever tape you expire is from this same pool.

Ryan