BackupExec 10 - overwrite full media

Destination > Devices and Media
When this job begins: Append to media, overwrite if no append able media is available

In the Media Set Properties:
Ser Overwrite protection whatever number of hours, days or weeks it usually take to fill the media before you want to overwrite.

Set Append period to None: Infinite - Allow Append

With this the job will append to the media until the media is full then when it can no longer find append able media it will overwrite it as long as the Overwrite protection is period falls within that time.

Usually if I want to accomplish what you are trying to do I will sit down and see how many days or jobs it takes to fill the tape. I will then set the Overwrite protection in Media Set Properties to say 3 days and append to Infinite. Then in Devices and Media I set "When this job begins:" to overwrite media. This way the job will always be looking to overwrite the media but the media set will not allow it until the 3rd day. This usually allows for less user intervention then what you were trying to do.

Hope this helps!

Thank you very much but I have set:
Destination > Devices and Media
When this job begins: Append to media, overwrite if no append able media is available

In the Media Set Properties:
Overwrite protection 0 hours

I think this is quite strange...

append, then overwrite contradicts itself. Append means not to overwrite, but to add info to the media until it is full. It makes absolutely no sense to append a backup to a media, and then if it gets full, to empty it again. If you want to overwrite the media, then don't use the append option.

Backups originaly were only done to tapes, and a tape you have to fully erase before you can overwrite it again, so if you were using append, the backup software would have needed to erase the complete tape during the backup if not all data had enough room on it. This works the same even if you aren't using tapes, but rather a disk backup.

OK thanks, but I would like to have the data appended until the media gets full - and then have the media overwritten as a full backup does only fill about 5% of the tape. I also thought that if you overwrite the tape each time you make a backup - the lifetime for media and drive will be shorter...!?

 I thought "Append to media, overwrite if no append able media is available" was the option for what I'm explaining above!?

That's bad...