Dell NetWorker 19.9 Administration Guide

Creating a media pool

Perform the following steps to create a new media pool.

1. In the Administration window, click Media.
2. In the left pane, select Media Pools.
3. From the File menu, select New.
4. In the Name attribute, type a name for the media pool.

   A media pool is associated with a label template. Use a name that clearly associates the media pool with the corresponding label template.

5. In the Comment attribute, type a description of the media pool.
6. Leave the Enabled attribute selected.
7. For the Pool Type attribute, select the media pool type.
   • Backup—Select this type to configure the pool to receive backup data.
   • Backup clone—Select this option to configure the pool to receive a clone copy of backup data.
   • Archive—Select this type to configure the pool to receive archive data.
   • Archive clone—Select this option to configure the pool to receive a clone copy of archive data.
8. In the Label Template attribute, select the matching label template.
9. In the Data Source attribute, select the backup groups that are eligible to back up to this media pool.
10. (Optional), on the Selection Criteria tab, configure the following options:
    • Devices—Select the devices on which NetWorker can mount volumes for this pool.
    • Media type required—Select which device type NetWorker can use to label volumes for this pool. You cannot use this attribute when you select an option in the Media type preferred attribute.
    • Media type preferred—Select the device type that NetWorker should use first to label a volume for this pool. You cannot use this attribute when you select an option in the Media type required attribute.

    NOTE:When you do not configure the Media type required or Media type preferred attribute, you can write data across several volumes of different media types (for example, magnetic disk and tapes), if the volumes mounted on the storage devices have the appropriate label associated with the media pool.
11. On Configuration tab, configure the following options:

    Attribute	Definition
    Auto Media Verify	Select this attribute to perform automated media verification while data is written to a volume labeled for this media pool. Auto media verification provides more information.
    Max parallelism	Increase the value to define the maximum number of simultaneous save streams that NetWorker writes to each device in the pool. The default value for this attribute is 0, which means that the attribute has no effect on other parallelism settings. When you set the Max parallelism attribute to 1, a prolonged delay might occur between the backup of save sets. To resolve this issue, increase the Max parallelism attribute for the pool resource. However, when you increase the pool parallelism value, the time to recover data on the volume increases. NOTE: For AFTD and DD Boost devices, the Max nsrmmd count attribute value for a device affects the Max parallelism attribute. For example, consider an AFTD device (AFTD_1) that has a Max sessions attribute value of 20 and a Max nsrmmd value of 4. Now suppose a backup pool with a Pool parallelism attribute of 1 selects AFTD_1 . The total number of save sessions that NetWorker can start for AFTD_1 is 4, one for each nsrmmd process. Tape and FTD devices can only spawn one nsrmmd process at a time, so if the previous example used a tape device, then the total number of save sessions would be 1.
    Recycle from other pools	Select this option to enable NetWorker to use expired volumes that are labeled for other media pools in this pool that have the Recycle to other pools attribute enabled, when the NetWorker server does not have access to blank volumes or volumes eligible for reuse and assigned to this pool.
    Recycle to other pools	Select this option to enable NetWorker to use expired volumes that are labeled for this media pool in other pools that have the Recycle from other pools attribute enabled, when the NetWorker server does not have access to blank volumes or volumes eligible for reuse and assigned to the other pool.
    Recycle start	Defines the time to start the automatic relabel process each day. By default this attribute is empty and the automatic relabeling of recyclable volumes is not done. Use the format HH:MM. Automatically relabeling volumes in a media pool provides more information.
    Recycle interval	Defines the interval between two starts of the automatic relabel processes. The default value is 24:00. Use the format HH:MM.
    Max volumes to recycle	Defines the maximum number of recyclable volumes that NetWorker can relabel during each automatic relabel process. The default value is 200.
    Recycle start now	Select this attribute to start the automatic relabel process of recyclable volumes for this pool immediately after you create the pool. The default value is No.
    Store index entries	For archive pools only. Select this attribute to configure an archive pool that creates client file index entries for the archive save sets. Clear this option to configure an archive pool that will not create client file index entries for the archive save sets.
    Worm pool/Create DLTWORM	Supported WORM and DLTWORM tape drives provides more information about how to create Worm pools.

12. Optionally, on the Restricted Data Zones tab, from the restricted datazone list, select the restricted datazone in which to add the pool.
13. Click OK

    If any of the settings for a new media pool match an existing media pool, this message appears:

    Pool(s) pool_name has overlapping selection criteria.

    If this message appears, review the media pool configuration and modify any overlapping criteria.

14. If you did not select a label template when you create the media pool, a message appears that tells you that NetWorker creates a label template for the media pool, click OK.