Backup Criteria for Volume Selection and Mounting

When a scheduled or manual backup occurs, Backup searches for a volume from the appropriate pool to accept the data that needs to be written. The storage volumes available for Backup to use are the volumes that are mounted on standalone devices and the volumes accessible to Backup through auto media management or available to Backup through an autochanger or silo.

If you try to back up files when an appropriate volume is not mounted, Backup requests a writable volume by displaying a message similar to the following in the Pending display:

media waiting: backup to pool `Default' waiting for 1 writable
backup tape or disk

When you start a data recovery, Backup displays a message in the Pending display that requests a mount of the volume name that contains the backed-up data, as in:

media waiting: recover waiting for 8mm 5GB volume-name

If you need more than one volume to recover the files, the Pending display lists all of the volumes in the order they are needed. During the recovery process, Backup requests the volumes it needs, one at a time.

If you mount more than one volume on the storage devices used by Backup, Backup uses the following hierarchy to select a volume on which to write data:

• An already mounted, appendable volume from the appropriate pool

• An already mounted, recyclable volume from the appropriate pool that is not currently in use

• An already mounted, unlabeled volume that is not currently in use and is in a device for which auto media management is enabled

• An appendable volume that is not currently mounted in the device but is from the appropriate pool

• A recyclable volume that is not currently mounted in the device but is from the appropriate pool