Hi,

As long as an object is protected in DP, the data will not be deleted or overwritten on the target side. When the object protection expires or you manually recycle it, it is not protected anymore. Two things can happen, based on the kind o target device you are using:

• If you are using a physical or virtual tape device then the tape will not be protected anymore as soon as all objects on it have expired protection or have been recycled. That basically means that the tape becomes available for re-usage in a future session. As long as the tape has not been re-used, it is still possible to recover data from it.
  
  
• If you are using a Backup to Disk (B2D) device then the mechanism is different as those devices are not re-using the same media again. Each new session will generate new slots and the expired slots will need to be removed. This will happen automatically in a daily media session which is running by default around noon together with other (DB) maintenance tasks. If you look for media sessions around noon in the GUI IDB context then you should be able to see them. You can also initiate this deletion manually with omnimm -delete_unprotected_media [Library|-all]. Note that there is a global parameter "DeleteUnprotectedMediaMinimumAge" preventing deletions of recent media and it is set to 1 day by default.

Hi Sir.

Thanks for your reply.

yes. I'm using D2D.

I tried to use this command omnimm -delete_unprotected_media -force, but there are message appears (there is no backup to disk device configured)

as I understood. I have to recycle expired slots to get free space at D2D. Am I right?

Regards.

Dear Ahmed,

Please be more specific.

• You ar saying you are using a D2D device. The device type in DP is "Backup To Disk". How is your device configured in DP? Is it "Backup To Disk", yes or no?
  
  
• You are saying that the omnimm command is failing. Please share the exact message seen.

As explained you should not need to run omnimm manually. This should happen automatically with the daily IDB maintenance which is running around noon by deafult. Did you already check the media sessions you find around noon to verify whether they are deleting slots form you B2D device?

Hi Sir.

Our Backup Software (HP Data Protector ), Backup Storage Hardware (HP D2D StorageWorks)

Regards.

OK, so that will be configured as a tape device and used as a VTL. More specifically, you should see a "SCSI Library" configured. From DP's perspective this is just a tape library, not Backup To Disk. If you would double check your device configuration (Devices and Media context in the GUI) then you would be able to confirm that.

The possible issue with this setup is that, if you have too many slots configured on your virtual library, you may easyly run out of disk space. That is because, as I explained initially, data is not being deleted from tapes. The tapes are only becomming available for re-use when data has expired. In a virtual library this means that those tapes with unprotected data are still taking up disk space on the target system. There are 2 ways of getting around this: either have less slots in the virtual library OR format expired tapes. Once such a tape is formatted, it does not contain the data anymore and so the related disk space will be recovered on the target system. I did write an article about this in the past:

Support Tip: Disk space usage and data cleanup on a Backup to Disk device

Hi Sir.

Appreciate your support.

Yes. it's VTL

as I understand from your article, I have to add disk space or remove some tapes form the library.

If I remove some slots from the library, this will make PD auto-write the new backup to expired slots Automatically?

My goal is, Don't face Full disk issues again.

Otherwise, I have 50 slots with a max size 1600 GB in every library. and total Storage disk space 16 TB.

What are the best practices for slots number in each library

Thanks again for your support.

Yes, you can just export expired tapes, which will free up space on your target device. It's a matter of finding the right balance: having enough tapes to always cover all backups and not having too many leading to space issues on the device. The problem with that is that compression is not always predictable. That is why I cannot provide you with any recommended numbers. Just check how many unprotected media you have and export a fair amount of them, making sure you have enough available to cover all backups. Next: monitor the situation on a daily basis for some time. More tapes will expire and become available for re-usage again. The balance between tapes expiring and other tapes being re-used again should lead to a more-or-less stable disk usage on the target device. If you see that you have a lot of disk space left and that while all media have already been used once at least (meaning: there are no empty tapes, only tapes with data on it, either expired or protected) then you could possibly add more tapes again. Please note that the effect of adding new tapes will only be seen after they have been used once at least. Only then they will be filled with data. So I recommend to be carefull when adding and formatting new tapes again. Maybe assume that there will be no compression at all (so each tape would really occupy 1600 GB) and take an additional safety margin into account to make sure the target device is not running full. That way you can calculate how many tapes can be added.

Thanks, Sir For your support.

My pleasure. And thanks for flagging verified answers. This really helps others to see rigth away the post is potentially useful to them too.