> I don't think there's a simple directive to say "Spool every outstanding
> job before you put anything to tape"

AFAIK, this is not possible.

>, or for that matter a directive to
> say "While you're putting job A to tape, you might as well start
> spooling job B"

On the other hand, this is *exactly* what you get when running multiple
concurrent jobs that write to the same tape device _with data spooling
enabled_.

> Bacula will write concurrent backups to tape quite happily, but it's not
> recommended as you'll wind up with very fragmented backups

This only happens when spooling is not enabled.

> which will require a lot of seeking

Bacula only does one seek, to position the tape at the beginning of the
job; then it just reads sequentially until all relevant data has been
retrieved(*). This is also true for disk volumes...

So what you get with interleaved jobs is just longer restore times (you
have to read and discard lots of unrelated data blocks) and a messier
volume format.

(*)Last time I checked bacula used to always read through the end of the
volume. I don't know if things have changed now.

Andrea

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