Paul Bijnens wrote:

Toralf Lund wrote:

I'm thinking about using more than one tape, i.e. set "runtapes" parameter to a value > 1, for my updated archival setup. Is there anything special I need to keep in mind when doing this? Also, how do I set up runspercycle in this case? Is it the total number of tapes runspercycle * runtapes, or just runspercycle?

runspercycle does not need to be changed.  The "runtapes" means that
for each run up to that number of tapes may be used (note: not "must").

You have to increase your tapecycle probably to cover the same dumpcycle(s), because you'll burn twice as much tapes for each run.

(well, "burn", hopefully not litteraly).

I'm still not sure I understand. If I have

runspercycle 2

and

runtapes 2

will amanda try to distribute the full dumps across 4 tapes, or just 2?

The parameter "taperalgo largestfit" will help to fill the first
tape(s) to 100%.  (New since amanda 2.4.3.)

I'm using that already.

This works better when also using:

dumporder "SSSSSS"      # as many S's as you have dumpers

(or use "TTTTTT", which is a good approximation of SSSS, but optimises
the total runtime of your backups better; I use TTTTT).

For a complete explanation why this works better, see:


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amanda-users/message/46327

This is very helpful indeed. Thanks.

--
- Toralf