Retrieving Older Tape Volumes

[buster99]

Hello, I'm looking for advice cleaning up tape volume son an archived TSM server. This server was sunset in May, 2012 and the majority of our data is stored for 7 years. I have quite a few tape volumes on this server that have not been written to since before January, 2012, so I'm thinking that the data should be expired and the tapes made available for retrieval from offsite or available as a scratch tape onsite. It has been recommended to me to do a "move data" on these tapes if I want them back, but I think I would just be moving around expired data and wasting too much time with this manual process on an archived server.

I'm thinking that the retention settings on the server are set incorrectly and holding the data for too long...beyond the required 7 years. The settings are listed below. Would it make sense to lower any of these settings to help expire data that is on tape and older than 7 years ? Or any other recommendations would be appreciated. Thank you


Policy Policy Mgmt Copy Versions Versions Retain Retain
Domain Set Name Class Group Data Data Extra Only
Name Name Name Exists Deleted Versions Version
--------- --------- --------- --------- -------- -------- -------- -------

WINDOWS WINDOWS 7_YEAR_TAPE STANDARD 2,600 2,600 2,600 2,600

 

[booman55]

If the backup objects are ACTIVE they will never expire. A backup object only expires once it becomes INACTIVE and then waits for the number of days defined by retention settings.

 

[buster99]

Would changing any of the copygroup retention settings help ? Since this is an archived server, we do not want to run new backup on each of the nodes. Any other options ? Thank you