Tape Retention with DPM2010

The technical support forum for Firestreamer (the virtual tape library).
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uwer
Posts: 2
Joined: 13 May 2011, 10:13

Post by uwer »

Hi,
We have created 4 Tape libraries. Each one is connected to its own USB 3.0 disk (which is changed based on the retention scheme once a week).
We created file media on each disk. Tape retention in DPM2010 is set as follows:
Library #1 and #4 (40 tapes each): 4 Weeks, 6 Months
Library #2 and #3 (10 tapes each): 2 Weeks
I'm aware that it's DPM's responsibility to mark tapes as free but it seems that DPM uses empty tapes as long as there are any available. This causes an overflow on the disk since there is not enough space available to hold more than one set of data.

What is the recommended way to handle this? Currently I'm deleting the tape files when mounting the disk again and create new tapes. This could be scripted but it doesn't feel right.

I would appreciate some advice in this matter.

Thanks in advance.

Uwe
jsf
Cristalink Support
Posts: 300
Joined: 29 Aug 2010, 09:03

Post by jsf »

You need to limit the size of tapes to prevent the disk overflow. See How many tapes of which sizes should I use?.
Best regards,
John Smith
Cristalink Support
uwer
Posts: 2
Joined: 13 May 2011, 10:13

Post by uwer »

Thanks for the reply.

Do I understand this correctly, that DPM will start overwriting old tapes the moment it doesn't have any empty tapes available?

I will set this up for next weekend's backup. Since two of our libraries have a retention of 2 weeks, I'll know quite soon if everything works ok.

Thanks again for your help.

Uwe
jsf
Cristalink Support
Posts: 300
Joined: 29 Aug 2010, 09:03

Post by jsf »

Do I understand this correctly, that DPM will start overwriting old tapes the moment it doesn't have any empty tapes available?
It's a question for Microsoft, not for us. Firestreamer has no effect on this.
Best regards,
John Smith
Cristalink Support
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