On Monday 16 February 2009 14:08:59 Dan Langille wrote:
> Alex F wrote:
> > Item 1. Delete volume on purge.
> > Origin: Alex F, alexxzell at yahoo dot com
> > Date: 16 February 2009
> >
> > What: A feature that would permit Bacula to delete a volume from the
> > hard disk after it has been purged.
> >
> > Why: Useful for users backing up to hard disks. I for instance, am doing
> > this, and have to manually list volumes, seek and delete them, and
> > afterwards delete them from the mysql database. Woulld be acceptable if
> > I had to do it for 1 client...but I have many servers being backed up so
> > this is time-consuming. Maybe a new status could be defined when listing
> > jobs, something like "Deleted".
> >    I know Bacula treats backups like if it were tape jobs, but I believe
> > that this approach is a little outdated, and some help should be pointed
> > towards the users who use Servers for the purpose of backing up.
>
> This is what recycling is for.

>I would second both Eric's remark and Dan's remark.  If you recycle Volumes,
>in general, there is no need for deleting them.  I suspect you haven't read
>the manual carefully as there is a whole chapter devoted to this -- there is
>no need to manually do anything in 99.9% of all cases.

I surely agree with you, Kern, about the whole Recycling thing. I have also read the manual many times before and I am aware of the Recycling chapter.
Why I have chosen not to recycle my volumes is because I label them by <JobId, date, time> etc (LabelFormat = "JobID-${JobId}_Client-${Client}_${Day:p/2/0/r}-${Month:p/2/0/r}-${Year}_${Hour:p/2/0/r}h:${Minute:p/2/0/r}m:${Second:p/2/0/r}s"), and when recycled, it just keeps the old name, it doesn't actually relabel the volume.
That is why I chose to have multiple volumes all labeled nicely. It's better for me to have them arranged like that.

>In some very special applications where the names of the volumes are critical
>and must be changed rather than using recycling, or when volumes are purged a
>long time before they are re-used (recycled), I can see the need for deleting
>volumes, but as Eric points out, that feature has already been requested.
>Regards,
>Kern

You got that right all the way! I hope you see my point now (I read your last paragraph after I already explained my reasons).