How Arcserve Backup Logs Expired Media

Arcserve Backup logs messages in the Activity Log that relate to media that is expired or will expire in certain number of days.

• When the backup job appends the backup data to an expired media, a warning message is displayed as shown below:

This job is appending to an expired media. (MEDIA=media_name[S/N:serial_number], ID=media_id, SEQ=sequence_number)

• When a backup job chooses a media to overwrite or append the backup data, it checks the alert period of the media expiration and displays the following message:

This job is using media that will expire after <# of days> (MEDIA=media_name[S/N:serial_number], ID=media_id, SEQ=sequence_number).

• Where <# of days> represents a specific number days (for example, 3, 5), Media_name represents the name of the media (for example, tape1, Media_id represents the media ID (for example, 3d3c), and Sequence_number represents the sequence number.
• Note: This operation applies to both first tape and spanning tape.
• The alert period of the media expiration is 30 days by default. You can change this by adding the DWORD AlertPeriodForTapeExpiration to the following registry key to set the alert period (number of days):

\\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ComputerAssociates\Arcserve Backup\Base\Task\Backup\AlertPeriodForTapeExpiration

• Note: This approach only applies to tape media, and you cannot overwrite to an expired media.