Consider the following for archive sets written to multiple tapes:
• The status of an archive tape determines whether it can be used for an archive job. For details, see Archive tape status.
• Multiple-tape jobs are written to as few tapes as possible to facilitate restores. For details, see Examples of how the Unitrends appliance uses the available space on archive tapes.
• For the first tape used in a multi-tape archive job, the status can be either empty or occupied. For each subsequent tape, the appliance uses only tapes with status empty. For more details, see Successful archive job written across multiple tapes and Archive set written to as few tapes as possible.
• If there is not enough space on a tape for an entire archive set, the job uses the available space on the first tape in the specified range and then searches for subsequent tapes with status empty to complete the job. If there are not enough tapes available with this status, the job fails. However, although the job itself fails, some backups might be archived successfully and could be available for restore. For more details, see Failed attempt to write an archive set across multiple tapes.