>   I agree with Bob, there is no affinity between physical 
> tape media and a physical tape drive.

You're obviously a man of keen intellect.  :-)

>   However, what would have happened (and caused VX support to suggest
> bpexpdate'ing the media) is a RVSN/EVSN mismatch.  Consider a 
> [scenario of misconfigured tapes being written with each other's
RVSN.]

Hmmmm.  Interesting, and testable, hypothesis.  I might be able to set
this up in a lab in a couple of weeks if nobody else can do it sooner.


>   What I don't know is if expiring the media, will cause 
> NetBackup to write a new VSN during the next backup cycle.

Somewhere, I've read a detailed description on what gets rewritten,
when.  But this should be easy to test.  Don't see a clear reason to
rewrite the RVSN on a tape with no images, but it wouldn't hurt and
maybe it helps the gain adjustment on some technologies...?  In any
event, this is easily testable.  I'm going away for a week; this goes on
the task list.

Excellent ideas, Mike!