PBS Tape Backup - New to this, questions regarding job config

T

TDW0kxvche9

Member
Sep 1, 2022
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Hi there,
i'm new to Tape-Backups and the built-in Tape-functions of PBS.

We have a physical installed PBS with a 5,25" LTO8-Drive and some Tapes, and we want to backup our local backups weekly to tape, so that we can take the backups off-site.
So, let's say, we have 5 tapes (Tape1-Tape5) and i want to backup the latest backup of all local namespace-backups to this tape. The tapes can hold ~12TB, our local backup (all namespace, all versions) are about 6 TB; so the latest version fits to 1 tape.

For testing, i scheduled the Backup-Job daily at 08:00.

I've created a Media Pool with this settings:
1762150661755.png

And configured two Tapes (german: "Band"):
1762150693276.png

The Backup-Job is configured like this:
1762150744313.png

I've ran the backup several days to Band_1 without issues. All content was overwritten with the latest backups of all VMs.
Then i added the Band_2 to the Media Set and inserted this tape.

If the backup runs now, it asks me to insert Band_1:
Code: 
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: waiting for drive lock...
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: Starting tape backup job 'rpool_backup:Bandsicherung:TapeDrive:BackupAll'
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: task triggered by schedule '08:00'
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: update media online status
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: starting new media set - reason: policy is AlwaysCreate
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: media set uuid: a84613bb-de62-4163-8191-8da799dc5a3c
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: found 54 groups (out of 54 total)
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: latest-only: true (only considering latest snapshots)
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: backup snapshot "ns/Hetzner/ns/daily/ct/102/2025-10-30T21:03:53Z"
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: allocated new writable media 'Band_1'
2025-10-31T08:00:00+01:00: Checking for media 'Band_1' in drive 'TapeDrive'
2025-10-31T08:00:16+01:00: wrong media label Band_2 (3582bb16-cc35-4d94-b2c3-e10c180abd04)
2025-10-31T08:00:16+01:00: Please insert media 'Band_1' into drive 'TapeDrive'
2025-10-31T08:00:16+01:00: queued notification (id=8dcca224-8044-47b9-8ef3-ae31a208a885)

I'm not sure, how i should change my configuration, so that i can add 5 Tapes and PBS runs the backup to the tape actual inserted.
To configure 5 Backup-Jobs with 5 Media-Sets seems not the right way?

Thanks in advance,
Bastian
 
Hm okay. My wish to create weekly backups with 5 tapes seems to get complex? :-)
So i have to create 5 MediaSets (1,2,3,4,5), with a allocation policy of "always" and 5 Backup-Jobs, that trigger in this way?

- 1: Starts next monday, and then every 5 weeks
- 2: Starts monday in 2 weeks, than every 5 weeks,
- 3: and so on
 
hmm with a 5 week rotation it's probably not possible since the calendar events are calendar based, and things like 'every x weeks' is not really possible

maybe there is another way:

* have an allocation policy of e.g. everyday at monday 09:00
* have retention policy of 27days (4 weeks minus one day buffer)

the only thing now is that PBS will tell you which drive to insert (you can see that beforehand on the web ui the 'next media' column)

this should make a new media set every week, and keep it for ~4weeks before the oldest will rotate out and the tape can be reused again
 
Hey @dcsapak,
thanks! One question - you said:
PBS just uses any tape that is available (no order here is guaranteed)
Click to expand...
And
the only thing now is that PBS will tell you which drive to insert (you can see that beforehand on the web ui the 'next media' column)
Click to expand...
So, Proxmox will use a "random" tape out of the Media Pool - so i have to look into the WebGUI, which tape Proxmox will required for the next backup run?
 
TDW0kxvche9 said:
So, Proxmox will use a "random" tape out of the Media Pool - so i have to look into the WebGUI, which tape Proxmox will required for the next backup run?
Click to expand...
yes, it's not really random, but how exactly it's chosen is currently just an implementation detail, so not guaranteed

in your case though, after 4 weeks, there is only one tape left to choose, and from that point on, always the oldest
media-set will be outside the retention period
 
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