Use TAPE outside of PBS backups

[vaschthestampede]

In the company we have a TS4300 that we currently use with Veeam.
In addition to managing backups of a VMware environment, we use it to archive files that we consider no longer "hot" but we don't want to delete them.
Since we are planning to switch everything to Proxmox, I would like to switch the management of this archiving to PBS.
The problem is that from PBS I can't see the files already present on the tapes.

Is there a way to manage previous archives?

 

[fabian]

that's not possible at the moment - PBS expect to use the full tape.

 

[vaschthestampede]

With "PBS expect to use the full tape" do you mean the whole tape or the single cartridge?

Also, can the file archiving activity be done with PBS or does it only take care of its own backups?

 

[fabian]

an LTO cartridge contains a single tape? or do you mean whether you can use the drive/changer/library for other things as well?

 

[vaschthestampede]

I'm afraid we're not understanding each other with the terminology.

Probably not the correct one but for me:

• cartridge

• drive

• changer/library: where the cartridges are parked and available to be loaded into the drivers.
• Tape

The TS4300 is something very similar to the previous image.
Is a tape that includes 3 drive and a changer with 80 solt of which 10 of Import/Export.

You are very free to correct this terminology.

Having established this what I would like to do is use some cartridges for PBS backups and other cartridges for archive files that we consider no longer "hot" but we don't want to delete them. All using PBS.

Is that possible?

 

[fabian]

the last thing is usually called a "tape library" or ", as opposed to a "tape drive" (the thing that reads/writes a tape/cartridge) and "tape changer" (the thing that manages the slots and puts the tapes/cartridges into a drive). tape is actually the thing inside the cartridge, but cartridge and tape are used pretty much as synonyms in my experience (although "tape" can also refer to the technology/storage medium as a whole of course - I have never seen it used for the library hardware though ).

https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/tape-backup.html contains more details about setting it up, in particular

https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/tape-backup.html#media-pools

A media pool is a logical container for tapes. A backup job targets a single media pool, so a job only uses tapes from that pool.

and https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/tape-backup.html#label-tapes

should be of interest to you

the main point still applies though - PBS only manages the PBS part, it does not and cannot write other data to tape.