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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-03T09:19:34+00:00

I want to set-up what I believe to be a simple back-up process using

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I want to set-up what I believe to be a simple back-up process using Backup Exec. This is how I want it to work:

Tuesday:

Run a full back up Tuesday morning with tape "A"
Tuesday during the day, swap out tape "A" with tape "B"

Wednesday:

Run a full back up Wednesday morning with tape "B"
Wednesday during the day, swap out tape "B" with tape "A"

Thursday:

Run a full back up Thursday morning with tape "A"
Thursday during the day, swap out tape "A" with tape "B"

Friday:

Run a full back up Friday morning with tape "B"
Friday during the day, swap out tape "B" with tape "A"

and so on week after week.

The problem I am running into is I just want the media (tape “A” and tape “B”) to overwrite the earliest back-up once the media is maxed out in capacity. It seems that what I have to do is pick an amount of time that would be close to when the media “should” be maxed out. Then set the AP to be infinite.

Is that the closest way I can achieve my goal here?

Thanks
David

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    BackupExec works with append-periods and protection-periods, so yes I think you’re correct. It cannot just overwrite the “oldest” backup set on the tape.

    Don’t forget this is an actual linear tape, so it doesn’t have random access quite like a hard-drive. So when it starts to overwrite Job1 at the beginning of the tape with Job9, what happens when it’s used all the space that Job1 used, and now it’s over-writing Job2.

    Basically, you are either appending to a tape at the end of the utilised area, or you’re splatting the tape and starting at the beginning.

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