Inventorying

The inventorying operation detects tapes loaded into a tape device and assigns names to those that have none. Perform the operation every time you load tapes into the tape device slots.

Inventorying methods

Acronis Backup provides the following two methods of inventorying.

Fast inventorying

Acronis Backup scans tapes for barcodes. Using barcodes, the software can quickly return a tape to the pool where it was before.

Select this method to recognize tapes used by the same tape device attached to the same machine. Other tapes will be sent to the Unrecognized tapes pool.

If your tape library contains no barcode reader, all tapes will be sent to the Unrecognized tapes pool. To recognize your tapes, perform full inventorying or combine fast and full inventorying as described later in this section.

Full inventorying

Acronis Backup reads tags written by Acronis software and analyzes other information about the contents of the loaded tapes. Select this method to recognize empty tapes and tapes written by Acronis software on any tape device and any machine.

The following table shows pools to which tapes are sent as a result of the full inventorying.

Tapes of certain types are sent to specific pools:

The fast inventorying can be applied to entire tape devices. The full inventorying can be applied to entire tape devices, individual drives, or slots.

Combination of fast and full inventorying

Full inventorying of an entire tape device may take a long time. If you need to inventory only a few tapes, proceed as follows:

1. Perform the fast inventorying of the tape device.
2. Click the Unrecognized tapes pool. Find the tapes you want to inventory and note which slots they occupy.
3. Perform the full inventorying of these slots.

What to do after inventorying

If you want to back up to tapes that were placed in the Unrecognized tapes or Imported tapes pool, move them to the Free tapes pool, and then to the Acronis pool or a custom pool. If the pool to which you want to back up is replenishable, you may leave the tapes in the Free tapes pool.

If you want to recover from a tape that was placed in the Unrecognized tapes or Imported tapes pool, you need to rescan it. The tape will be moved to the pool associated with the vault you have selected during the rescanning, and the backups stored on the tape will appear in the vault.

Sequence of actions

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 Inventory.
3. Select the inventorying method: Fast or Full.
4. [Optional] Select the Move newly detected tapes from the 'Unrecognized tapes' or 'Imported tapes' pools to the 'Free tapes' pool check box.

   Warning. Only select this check box if you are absolutely sure that the data stored on your tapes can be overwritten.

5. [Optional] Select tape libraries and stand-alone drives to be inventoried. By default, all the tape libraries and stand-alone drives are selected.
6. [Optional] If you chose the Full inventorying method, you can select tape library slots and drives to be inventoried. By default, all the slots and drives are selected.