The MediaAgent automatically recycles media that no longer contains data by moving them back to the original scratch pool for reuse. In the case of magnetic storage devices, the MediaAgent physically removes the folders and files, if possible.
Media can be recycled when you prune data using the Data Aging operation or job based pruning in the CommCell. However, keep in mind, that data aging or job based pruning does not recycle media with an Active status. ( If you want to perform data recovery operations from data that has been aged or save the media containing the data for future use, see Accessing Aged Data.)
Media will also be recycled when you delete the following entities in the CommCell, if they are no longer valid or required and then perform an data aging operation:
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Storage policy or storage policy copy
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Client’s backup set
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Uninstall the Client or Agent
For comprehensive information on the Data Aging operation, see Data Aging.
Additionally, media is immediately recycled when you use the Delete Content option from the CommCell Console. For more information on the Delete Content option, see Delete Contents.
Data aging removes the data entries in the CommServe database to logically remove the data from the media. Once the data entries are removed from the CommServe database, data is logically removed and hence no longer available for restore.
Tape Media
If data stored on media meets its retention criteria and data aging is run, the data is logically deleted (that is, removed from the CommServe database). If all of the data on a media is pruned, the media is recycled. That is, it is returned to the scratch pool that is currently associated with the storage policy copy containing the media.
Let us look at the following examples, to gain a better understanding of recycling tape media:
Recyclable Media
In this example, subclient A has its first cycle on Tape 1 and the second cycle on Tape 2. The data retention rule for the storage policy copy used by the subclient has been set to 1 day and 1 cycle.
If data aging is run on 9/7, all the data in Tape 1, (which exceeds the 1 day and 1 cycle criteria) will be aged and the media will be recycled.
Non-Recyclable Media
In this example, Subclient B has its first and second cycles on Tape 1, and the third and fourth cycles on Tape 2. The data retention rule for the storage policy copy used by the subclient has been set to 2 days and 3 cycles.
If data aging is run on 9/9, only the first cycle can be aged in order to keep three cycles. As the second cycle is still on Tape 1, this tape cannot be recycled.
Disk Media
If data stored on disk media is deleted or pruned, the data is both logically and physically deleted. If the data aging operation cannot access data stored on disk for any reason (for example, a disk sector is damaged, data has been moved or deleted, a network connection is down, and so on) data will remain, but not be usable. You must manually remove the data through the operating system. The disk data is stored in the CV_MAGNETIC folder of the mount path.