A Store Group is a logical grouping of stores. Store groups are required when you desire to configure a Protection Plan or Store Copy Task to use multiple pieces of media in rotation. Using a store group with removable media is a good practice for getting data off premise providing an offsite copy in case of a site wide disaster.

To create a new store group, right-click either the Storage node or All Store Groups node then select the Add a Store Group action. The Add Store Group wizard starts and asks you to provide a name for the store group. Choose a meaningful store group name. For example, if you wish to backup data to a new group of stores in media rotation each quarter of the year, your first store group could be called "Q1 Backups Group".

After you have named the group, click Next and select which stores will be members of the group. Check each store you would like to have in the group. You can change the priority of the stores within the group using the up or down arrows to the right of the list. Store priority is one method of selecting a store. See "Store selection preference" below.

When you have finished choosing the stores you would like to have as members of the group, click Next and choose a "Store selection preference".

When a Protection Plan or Store Copy Task is configured to store data to a store group, the stores in the group are analyzed and a determination is made to use an available store based on the store selection preference setting for the group.

If you choose "Selects the first available store in the order specified", the first available store will be used in priority order specified in the list. The store at the top of the list is checked for availability first, and selected for use if available. If offline, the next store in the list is checked, and selected for use if available, and so on until an available store is selected. A store is considered unavailable if it is offline, read-only or has less than the minimum free space required.

If you choose "Selects the most recently used available store", the most recently used and available store in the group will be used for subsequent plan or copy task runs until the store is either offline or has less than the minimum free space required available. This is the suggested option for stores on removable media.

If you choose "Selects the least recently used available storage", each available store will alternate being used by plans or copy tasks creating a number of copies of data on multiple stores. This is the suggested option for stores on fixed drives.

After you have chosen the stores to include in the group and the selection preference, click Next. You can review the store group settings before finishing the Add Store Group wizard.