In the message dated: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 09:31:41 -0300,
The pithy ruminations from =?UTF-8?Q?Ana_Em=C3=ADlia_M=2E_Arruda?= on 
<Re: [Bacula-users] Configuration reload for bacula-sd> were:
=> 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


=> Kern,
=> 
=> In spite of Bacula do not need different Media Types when using different
=> LTO generations in tape libraries, I really think that it could be a best
=> practice for working with LTO tapes to have the LTO tape generation
=> specified in storage device definition. Just because of compatibility

It would be great if Bacula was enhanced to add more intelligence to
the definition of storage devices, including specifying a list of media
types that the storage device can use 'read+write' or use 'read-only'.

=> have an LTO-3 drive working with LTO-3 catridges and you upgrade your
=> hardware to an LTO-5 drive that will not write to your LTO-3 catridges

That's close to our situation, as we have gone from LTO2 -> LTO3 -> LTO4.

=> because of compatibility. If you just specify "Media Type = LTO", Bacula

Even more confusing, when we began using Bacula, we had just LTO2 drives
& media, so all the initial media was labled "LTO2". When we upgraded
to LTO3, we had the choice of correctly labling the new media as "LTO3"
and then losing access to all our LTO2 media since Bacula cannot deal
with multiple media types in a single SD, or deliberately incorrectly
labling our LTO3 media as "LTO2", or using multiple SD definitions for
the same physical tape drives.

We chose to label all our media (LTO2, LTO3, and LTO4) as "LTO2"
within Bacula.

We use printed barcode labels to name each piece of media, and are using
a convention where the first non-zero digit in the name is the LTO
type. For example, tape 004079 is an LTO4 tape, while 003134 is LTO3
media. This makes it easy for human beings to distinguish the actual
media types.

=> will try to read and write to all the LTO-3 and LTO-5 catridges and this
=> will no work. Is there another way of distinguishing different LTO catridge
=> generations? Normally I have been using this way: having two storage device

Our solution has been to to label all media as "LTO2", but to set the actual
LTO2 tapes as "read-only" within Bacula.

=> definitions for the same drive, each one working with an LTO catridge
=> generation.

I dislike that idea, as it will cause problems with backups.  For example,
if a backup job begins with LTO3 media, loaded into a drive under the LTO3
definition for that SD, and the remaining available cartridges in the tape
changer are LTO4 media, then the backup will wait on operator intervention
until an LTO3 tape is supplied, rather than using one of the LTO4 tapes.

=> 
=> Best regards,
=> Ana
=> 

-- 
Mark Bergman                                           voice: 215-662-7310
mark.bergman AT uphs.upenn DOT edu                              fax: 
215-614-0266
http://www.cbica.upenn.edu/                
IT Technical Director, Center for Biomedical Image Computing and Analytics
Department of Radiology                         University of Pennsylvania
          PGP Key: http://www.cbica.upenn.edu/sbia/bergman 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
Bacula-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users