Accessing Aged Data

By default, data will be unavailable for data recovery operations when the following operations are performed:

Data Aging
Prune a Job From a Storage Policy Copy
Delete the Contents of Media (Delete Contents)

However, the metadata is marked for deletion on qualifying for Data Aging. When the media is subsequently used for a write operation, these metadata entries are deleted . Thus such media, which are not yet reserved, may be restorable by utilizing the Show Aged Data During Browse and Recovery option available in the CommCell Console's Browse/Recovery Option dialog box. (If media is physically not overwritten, use the Import Metadata from a Tape or Optical Media to recover the data.)

Note that the media from the scratch pools are re-used in a random manner and therefore may not hold the data for the full cycle. For example, media from the full backup may get re-used first before the incremental backups. Thus you may not be able to successfully recover your data at all times.

If you would like to preserve such media and the metadata associated with it, you can move them from the Scratch Pools to the Overwrite Protect Media Pool and keep the media outside the library. This will prevent the media from being overwritten, thereby allowing you to restore the data from the media at any time.

Note that the guaranteed way of retaining data is by setting the right Data Retention Rules (see Basic Retention Rules for more information) or using the option to Manually Retain a Job on a Storage Policy Copy.

Note the following:

Aged data can only be restored from removable storage media, i.e., tape or optical media. Data stored in Magnetic libraries cannot be restored using the Show Aged Data During Browse and Recovery option.
Data associated with deleted storage policy, or a deleted backup set cannot be restored using the Show Aged Data During Browse and Recovery option. (See Recovering Data Associated with Deleted Clients and Storage Policies if you wish to recover such data.)

Information associated with aged data and aged media can be viewed using the following options:

Data Protection History information display information on aged data, if the option to include aged data is selected in the history filter.
Jobs associated with Storage Policy Copies display information on aged jobs, if the option to include aged jobs is selected in the job filter. The filter also provides other options, such as the options to show how only aged jobs or exclude aged jobs.
Aged media associated with storage policy copies can also be viewed.
List media utilizes the global option to include aged media.
Restore by jobs lists the jobs in aged media, if the option to include aged data is selected in the restore by jobs filter.
The following reports also provide information on aged data when the necessary options are selected in the filters associated with these reports:
- Media Information Report
- Job Summary Report

In addition, the aged media will be displayed in Gray when viewed in the scratch pool and in the Data on Media dialog box.

Also note that in the CommCell Browser, aged media is displayed using a unique icon. See Identifying Media Icons for more information.