You can group one or more robotic library slots into partitions. Partitioning robotic library slots provides more control over which media is used for backup jobs. When you set up robotic library partitions, Backup Exec creates a device pool for each partition. Jobs targeted to a partition device pool run on the media located in the partition’s slots. For example, if you set up a partition that contains slots 1 and 2 and you want to run a weekly backup only on the media in these slots, you would submit the job to the partition device pool containing slots 1 and 2.
A partition divider lists the range of slots included in the partition.
For example, if you want to create two 5-slot partitions on a robotic library with 10 slots, click Slot 1 and Slot 6. In this example, Slots 1-5 will be included in the first partition and Slots 6-10 will be included in the second.
Partitions can include any number of robotic library slots; however, the first partition cannot be moved or deleted when other partitions exist.
Depending upon the robotic library configuration, the first slot could be numbered 1 or 0. If the robotic library uses a zero-based slot configuration and you assign the first partition to begin with slot 1, the Partition Utility will actually use slot 0 as the first slot for partition 1 and adjust the starting slot accordingly for all other partitions.
The partition device pools appear in the Devices view under the Device Pools icon. If the robotic library is partitioned, Backup Exec searches for the oldest recyclable media in the targeted partition only. If more than one media meeting the requirements is found, Backup Exec then selects the media in the lowest-numbered slot; for example, media in slot 2 would be selected before equivalent media in slot 4.
In order to fully benefit from Backup Exec’s partition management feature, Symantec recommends that you create a partitioning scheme that best matches the manner in which you want to control your backups. For example, some administrators may feel that network backups are best managed by allowing access to partitions based on users and groups, while others may want to base their partitions on operation types.