Operation Manual
207 Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2015
7.4.4 Tape management
7.4.4.1 Detecting tape devices
When detecting tape devices, Acronis Backup finds tape devices attached to the machine and places
information about them in the tape management database. Detecting tape devices is required:
After you have attached or re-attached a tape device.
After you have installed or reinstalled Acronis Backup on the machine to which a tape device is
attached.
When detecting tape devices, Acronis Backup disables them from RSM.
To detect the tape devices
1. In the Navigation tree, click Tape management. If connected to the management server, select
the storage node to which your tape device is attached.
2. Click Detect tape devices. You will see the quantity of connected tape devices, their drives and
slots.
7.4.4.2 Tape pools
Acronis Backup uses tape pools that are logical groups of tapes. The software contains the following
predefined tape pools: Unrecognized tapes, Imported tapes, Free tapes, and Acronis. Also, you can
create your own custom pools.
Predefined pools
Unrecognized tapes
The pool contains tapes that were written by third-party applications. To write to such tapes, you
need to move (p. 209) them to the Free tapes pool explicitly. You cannot move tapes from this pool
to any other pool, except for the Free tapes pool.
Imported tapes
The pool contains tapes that were written by Acronis Backup in a tape device attached to another
storage node or agent. To write to such tapes, you need to move them to the Free tapes pool
explicitly. You cannot move tapes from this pool to any other pool, except for the Free tapes pool.
Free tapes
The pool contains free (empty) tapes. You can manually move tapes to this pool from other pools.
When you move a tape to the Free tapes pool, the software marks it as empty. If the tape contains
backups, they are marked with the icon. When the software starts overwriting the tape, the data
related to the backups will be removed from the database.
Acronis
The pool is used for backing up by default, when you do not want to create your own pools. Usually it
applies to one tape drive with a small number of tapes.
Custom pools
You need to create several pools if you want to separate backups of different data. For example, you
may want to create custom pools in order to separate: