From: Jon LaBadie Sent: May 31, 2009 19:33
> 
> Dumpcycle is how frequently you want full backups.  You want
> a dumpcycle 0 (no units) to force full backups every run.
> 
> As your dumpcycle is so short, your runspercycle is only 1.
> 
> You also want a runtapes of 1 if you don't want want amanda
> to go to a second tape during the same run. *
> 
> As you have 5 labeled tapes in rotation tapecycle 5 is reasonable. **
> It will then have to use all five tapes before reusing the first.
> 
> You asked about tapes that had "empty incrementals".  If amanda
> recognized the tape, loaded the tape, but did not write any backup
> data to the tape, amanda still considers the tape "used".
> 
> *  Setting runtapes greater than the number expected to be used
> is reasonable.  That way if one day you get a monster dump, amanda
> can write it to the next tape.  And if there was a glitch writing
> the first tape, amanda can go to a second tape.
> 
> ** Your tapecycle can be lower than the number of tapes actually
> in rotation.  If your tapecycle exactly matches tapes and some
> glitch makes the next tape unusable, amanda can't write to any
> tapes.  Some amanda admins (myself included) set tapecycle to
> a value lower than the actual number of tapes in rotation.

Hi Jon:

Thanks for your response. It was nicely (and concisely) worded and 
definitely filled in a few of the blanks for me.

Regards, Hugh

-- 
Hugh E Cruickshank, Forward Software, www.forward-software.com