Auto Media Management

The auto media management feature gives Backup automatic control over media loaded in the storage device. If you enable the auto media management feature in the Devices resource, Backup automatically labels, mounts, and overwrites a volume it considers unlabeled, and automatically recycles volumes eligible for reuse that are loaded into the device. The auto media management feature is only enabled for standalone devices in the Devices resource. To enable auto media management for devices in an autochanger, see "Auto Media Management With Autochanger Devices".

Backup considers a volume unlabeled in the following conditions:

• The volume has no internal label.

• The volume is labeled with information other than a recognizable Backup label.

• The volume is labeled with a Backup label, but the density indicated on the internal label differs from the density of the device where the volume is mounted.

Because the auto media management feature can relabel a volume with a different density, it is possible to inadvertently overwrite data that still has value. For this reason, be careful if Backup volumes are shared between devices with different densities.

If you do not enable the auto media management feature, Backup ignores unlabeled media and does not consider it for backup.

If you enable the auto media management feature for a standalone device, Backup exhibits the following behavior when a volume becomes full during a backup:

1. Backup issues a notification that it is waiting for a writable volume. At the same time, Backup waits for the full, verified volume to be unmounted.

2. Backup monitors the device and waits for another volume to be inserted into the device.

3. After a volume is detected, Backup checks that the volume is labeled. If so, Backup mounts the volume. Backup checks to see whether the volume is a candidate to write data to. If so, the write operation continues. If not, Backup continues to wait for a writable volume to continue the backup.

4. If the volume is recyclable and is a member of the required pool, Backup recycles it the next time a writable volume is needed.

5. If the volume is unlabeled, Backup labels it when the next writable volume is needed for a save.

In general if a non-full volume is unmounted from a standalone drive and you enabled auto media management, Backup waits for 60 minutes before it automatically remounts the volume in the drive. This hour is considered a reasonable delay to give you or an operator time to unload the volume after unmounting.

Backup considers volumes that were labeled by a different application to be a valid relabel candidate if automedia management is enabled. Once Backup relabels the volume, the previously stored data is lost.