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4.1.3
Tape libraries
This section describes in detail how to use robotic tape devices as vaults for storing backup archives.
A tape library (robotic library) is a high-capacity storage device that contains the following:
one or more tape drives
multiple (up to several thousand) slots to hold tape cartridges
one or more loaders (robotic mechanisms) intended for relocating the tape cartridges between
the slots and the tape drives
barcode readers (optional).
4.1.3.1
Overview
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides full support of a tape library through Acronis Backup &
Recovery 10 Storage Node. The storage node should be installed on the machine a tape library is
attached to. Storage node can simultaneously use more than one tape library for keeping archives.
To manage a tape library media, the storage node uses the Windows Removable Storage Manager
(RSM). See the RSM Media Pools (p. 124) section for more information.
A dedicated database of the storage node keeps information of the backup content written onto the
tapes. So some operations (for example, Cleanup (p. 351)) can be performed quite fast without
accessing the media. It is possible to view the content of a backup archive located on a tape through
the console, even if a tape library is turned off, due to content information stored in the database. To
create an incremental or differential backup of data, the program uses the database instead of
loading, mounting, rewinding and reading a tape with the full data backup. However, a tape should
be read, for example, to validate (p. 360) a backup or to recover data from a backup.
A tape library can be locally attached to a machine the agent is installed on, but only in the case the
library is considered as a single tape drive. The agent can use such device to write and read data
backups, but the backup’s format differs from the format of the backups on the tapes written
through the storage node. To get information about the readability of the archives on tapes, written
by different components of other versions of the product by means of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10,
see the Tape compatibility table (p. 42) section.
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 enables you to set up distribution of backups by media. For example, a
separate tape set can be used to back up some specific data, and the backups of all other data will be
written onto any currently mounted tape, which does not belong to the tape set. See the Tape
support (p. 103) section for more information.
The backup schemes (Grandfather-Father-Son (p. 31), Tower of Hanoi (p. 35)) considerably assist you
with creating effective schedule and retention rules for backups on a tape library. In combination
with the tape options, the backup schemes enable you to reuse, in automatic mode, the tapes that
are considered as free after backup deletion. See the Tape rotation (p. 131) section for more
information.
4.1.3.2
Hardware
A tape library (robotic library) is a high-capacity storage device that contains the following:
one or more tape drives
multiple (up to several thousand) slots to hold tape cartridges
