Dell NetWorker 19.9 Administration Guide

Removing expired save sets

After the retention period for a save set expires (and the retention period for all the save sets that depend on the save set expire), the expire action, which is a part of the server maintenance workflow, marks the save set as recyclable in the media database. The NetWorker server tracks save set dependencies regardless of whether the dependent save sets are stored on the same or different volumes.

The activities that the expire action performs when a save set and all depend save sets expire, differs for advanced file type devices (AFTD) or Data Domain devices and tape volumes:

• Tape volume—Entries for save sets that are marked browsable are removed from the client file indexes. The status of the save set changes to recyclable in the media database. When all the save sets on the volume are recyclable, the mode of the volume changes to recyclable. You can relabel and overwrite a recyclable volume to reclaim backup storage.
• AFTD or Data Domain devices—Entries for save sets that are marked browsable are removed from the client file index and media database. Entries that are recoverable are removed from the media database. The expire action removes the data that are associated with the save sets from the disk volume and reclaims the disk space.

The NetWorker server maintains one file index for each client computer (regardless of the number of client resources for the client), and one media database that tracks data from all clients and all save sets.