Transfer Snapshot to Tape

[ShaneBanks]

We have an Exabyte VXA2 autoloader which we used in the past for daily backups. Now we do disk to disk using Retrospect 7.5 daily which normally works great. We want to transfer the latest snapshot to tape once per week to take to offsite storage, the transfer only takes one tape so it seems this would be simple.

 

I set up a backup set for each weekly transfer and added a tape to each backup set. To make it simple we are only using one tape at a time in the autoloader (we really don't need the loader now, but we have it) loaded in slot 1.

 

It has worked a few times, but normally it just sits waiting for media even when the correct tape is in the loader. Sometimes it will work if you manually load the tape into the drive and sometimes it doesn't.

 

Basically, I want to rotate four tapes offsite (week 1 - 4). What I would like to happen is that each week Retrospect takes WHATEVER tape is in slot 1 and overwrites it with the full current snapshot. Any ideas to make this work simply? Thanks for your help.

 

Shane Banks

[nekr0phage]

Hi Shane,

 

Retrospect will only write to a tape that is part of the appropiate backup set. It will not automatically overwrite a different backup. You will need to create a schedule that recycles the appropriate backup set for each week.

 

How is your library connected to the machine?

[ShaneBanks]

It is SCSI attached. I have it set to recycle. It seems that even though the proper tape, in the proper backup set is in the library in slot one, Retrospect doesn't seem to know it. I am not using barcodes on the tapes, but I can if that will help.

[nekr0phage]

Shane,

 

It shouldn't matter whether you use barcodes or not. What model library are you using exactly? And what are the SCSI ID's for the drive and library?