I set both, and don't keep client indexes (past 'normal' expire) for the 
backups/tapes in question.

Since our usual 'please hold this' backups are Sybase dumps (backup of 3-5 
files each day), saveset recovers of this sort aren't painful for us.  The 
difference becomes a few extra arguments in the recover command (including 
sudo).


For the original question, in our setup (EBS 7.1.3 and then 7.4.4) I've always 
seen it pull from new tape before recycling old.

--TSK

Tim Kimball
http://sungak.net



-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Brode [mailto:rick AT BRODETRAINING DOT COM] 
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2012 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: Precedence of use - expired or blank tape, in the same pool?

Actually, if a volume is marked "read-only" but is also recyclable, 
NetWorker can automatically relabel that volume if it needs to (no 
appendable volume available).  Instead of setting the volume to 
"read-only", it is safer to mark it "manual recycle"; this keeps 
NetWorker from ever deciding to relablel it on its own.

Rick


On 6/7/2012 10:05 AM, Bowersock, Bryan wrote:
> You could always set the tape volumes you don't want overwritten to a 
> "read-only" status - what I am unsure of is if Networker will still see the 
> data as expired and recycle it anyway.  I have to do that a lot as of late 
> because our offsite storage keeps sending back tapes that were sent just a 
> week or so before saying their retention period is up - our tape retention is 
> 6 months and tapes are returning in 2 weeks.  So, under media I will set the 
> tape volume to read-only and then add the tape volume to Networker's library, 
> and inventory the tape volume(s) so I can check the savesets just to be sure 
> they were sent back prematurely.  I'm always afraid Networker will grab one 
> by mistake, but it's nice to refresh my memory on how it checks for available 
> media again.  Perhaps I'm just overcautious...
>
>
>
>
> Bryan
> Storage/Database Administrator
>