A Volume is another term for a tape. A Volume Set is a logical grouping of Volumes, or tapes. A volume set is the destination for store vaulting tasks that target tape. When creating a vaulting task for tape you must choose a volume set as its destination. A volume set can be created by right-clicking the All Volume Sets folder and clicking its Add Volume Set action or by clicking the Add volume set button when creating a tape vaulting task, or it can be created when labeling a tape in a standalone drive. Blank unassigned tapes (volumes) are automatically added to a volume set as needed and are drawn from configured tape libraries. After a volume set is created, it appears in the All Volume Sets folder of the Tape Storage node.


Multiple tape vaulting tasks can write to the same volume set, and a tape vault can span more than one volume in a volume set.


A volume will be appended to until it becomes full or is unavailable, at which time the next available volume in the volume set will be used. If there are no more volumes in the volume set the software will automatically assign a blank, unassigned volume from a configured library, if available. If no volumes are available the vaulting task will fail with an indication that no usable media was available.

Tape Rotation

A tape rotation scheme can be configured by having two tape vaulting tasks, each writing to a different volume set. One task, for instance, runs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to one volume set and the other task runs on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays to the other volume set. A particular tape in the volume set will be written to every other day until it becomes full, at which time it can be removed from the library. If a tape that was just written to is removed, the next run of the vaulting task will use the next available tape in the volume set. If there are no available tapes in the volume set a new blank unassigned tape will automatically be assigned to the volume set. If no tapes are available the vaulting task will fail with an error indicating that no media is available.


If using a standalone tape drive, setting the Eject option (available from the Advanced Settings of a tape vaulting task) to True will cause the tape to be ejected upon completion of the task. Each day one tape can be taken off-site and one from the other volume set inserted into the drive.


If using a tape library, tapes in one magazine can be assigned to one volume set and tapes in another magazine can be assigned to the other volume set. The magazines can be rotated daily with one magazine taken off-site and the other inserted into the library.

Removing volume sets

A volume set cannot be removed until all vaults in the set have been removed. To remove a vault you must first delete the associated vaulting task. Once a volume set is removed, all of the tapes in that volume set are marked 'erase pending'. Tapes in the erase pending state can be erased by using the Erase action from the Volumes folder view.