Browse and Restore/Recover/Retrieve from Copies

Overview

By default, when a browse and restore/recover/retrieve operation is requested, the software attempts to browse and restore/recover/retrieve from the storage policy copy with the lowest copy precedence. If the data that you want to browse and restore/recover/retrieve was already pruned from the primary copy, the software searches the other copies of the storage policy in the following order:

Lowest copy precedence to highest copy precedence among all synchronous copies.
Lowest copy precedence to highest copy precedence among all selective copies (if your agent supports selective copies).

If the data that is to be browsed and restored/recovered/retrieved was secured through multiple storage policies, the software will search for the requested data first from synchronous copies starting with the lowest copy precedence number to the synchronous copy with the highest copy precedence number, and then from selective copies in the same order for each of these storage policies.

You can enable the Automatically Switch Copy to Read Data from any Copy option from the Browse/Recovery Option dialog box to automatically change the copy precedence if the primary copy is not available in the following conditions:

MediaAgent, library or drive pool is offline.
None of the drives in the specific library are in a usable state.
No data path configured to access this type of media.
The first media to read is not in the library.

(See Configure Browse/Search/Recovery Options for step-by-step instructions.)

You can choose to browse and restore/recover/retrieve from synchronous or selective copies other than the primary copies by using an agent's Advanced Browse/Restore/Recover/Retrieve Options or Select Copy Precedence dialog box to specify a copy precedence number at browse and restore/recover/retrieve time. This feature can be useful a variety of circumstances, including the following:

You know that the media containing the protected data for a particular copy has been removed from the storage library. In this case, you can choose to browse and restore/recover/retrieve from a copy whose media are inside the library.
You want to browse and restore/recover/retrieve from a copy that accesses faster magnetic disk media rather than slower tape media.
You know that the media drives used by a particular copy are busy with another operation and want to browse and restore/recover/retrieve from a different copy to avoid resource conflicts.

If you specify a copy precedence number for a browse and restore/recover/retrieve operation, the software searches only the storage policy copy with that precedence number in each of the storage policies through which the data was secured. If data does not exist in the specified copy, the browse and restore/recover/retrieve operation fails even if the data exists in another copy of the same storage policy.

You can also use the copy precedence feature to browse and restore/recover/retrieve from specific copies as follows:

Go through each storage policy that will be accessed by the browse and restore/recover/retrieve operation.
Use the Storage Policy Properties - Copy Precedence tab to assign a particular copy precedence to the copy that you want checked for that particular storage policy.
Specify that copy precedence number in the agent's Advanced Browse/Restore/Recover/Retrieve Options or Select Copy Precedence at browse/restore time.

For a more detailed discussion, see Recovering Data From Copies.

Restore/Recover/Retrieve Considerations

When you are directly performing a restore/recover/retrieve operation, as discussed in Basic Restore, you can select the necessary copy from which to perform the operation from the agent's Advanced Restore/Recover/Retrieve Options dialog box. Note that data should be restored/recovered/retrieved from the same copy from which you have performed the browse operation.