Recycle backup question

[rb6879]

My version of Retrospect is 7.5.13.100. I utilize a REV 35 GB drive. I cuurently have ~60GB of data to backup. The backup set in question is named Backup Set B and contains 4 member REV disks.

 

I decided that, due to the expsense of the REV disks, I would use the Recycle B/U on this Backup Set to see if it acted as I anticiatped based upon the Restrspect documentation. Before running the Recycle B/U I was utilzing ~110 GB of REV disks to B/U ~60 GB of data.

 

I ran the Recycle B/U. Retro asked for disk 1, gave me the anticipated data destruction warnings and it was off to the races. Retro used the anticipated 2 REV disks to perform the B/U (B-1 and B-2). I have just now performed the first progressive B/U of Backup Set B. I inserted B-2 to begin the Progressive B/U. However Retro stopped and required that I insert B-4 to continue the Progressive B/U.

 

Huh?????

 

Did I grossly misunderstand the purpose of the Recycle B/U, or is there some other step I need to perfrom to make Retro actually recycle the REV disks?

 

Thanks

[Mayoff]

All backup sets members have a number at the beginning of the backup set name, not the end:

 

1-BU Set A

2-BU Set A

3-BU Set A

 

A recycle backup erase the entire backup set and starts over again. The backup set properties will show you how much is on each member, the size, free space and location. You should check the properties to see what yours says.

 

Retro only asks for a disk when the last disk fills up, is unavailable or you have reached the maximum allowed disk usage.

[rb6879]

Thanks for the reply. I checked the status of the members of Backup Set B. For some reason it does show that members 1-3 are full and that member 4 has ~78% available. This seems illogical as the Recycle B/U only utilized members 1 and 2.

 

The status for members 3 and 4 does not seem logical based upon what I perceived the purpose of the Recycle B/U to be. It seems logical to assume that when you inform Retro that you want to run a Recycle B/U that the members of that B/U set would be returned to "scratch" status and available for re-utilization as blank media.

 

As this does not appear to be the case, after a decision is made to run a Recycle B/U, do I have to reformat the surplus members and reinsert them into the backup set? This seems like an unneeded and tedious step.

 

All-in-all I quite happy with my decision to purchase Retro as my choice of B/U software. However, if my assumption regarding Recycle B/U is correct, this is a little disappointing as I believe the software ought to be "intelligent" enough to realize that a realistic purpose of a Recycle B/U is to save media costs and should return all media in that B/U set to "scratch" status. Or, is my understanding of the Recycle B/U flawed and there is another process within Retro that I have not discovered that would act as I anticipated?

 

Thanks again for your input.

[Mayoff]

If the media is not available at the time of the recycle operation, then the media will be erased and re-used next time it is requested for backup.