Auxiliary Copy job uses too many tapes

When performing an Auxiliary Copy operation the job uses too many tapes.

Symptoms

Auxliary copy operation, usually from disk to tape, uses a large number of tapes with only a small amount of data written to each tape.

Causes

The Auxiliary Copy uses too many tapes because the source copy is disk configured multiple writers/streams.

When the Auxiliary Copy runs it will try to reserve the same amount of media based on the amount of streams configured in the Storage Policy.

Resolution

To resolve this issue:

1. From the CommCell Browser, select Policies | Storage Policies | <Storage Policy Name>.
2. Right-click the appropriate secondary copy, and then click Properties.
3. Click the Media tab.
4. Select Combine source data streams to check box, and then enter value in the Stream(s) box. When this option is enabled the Auxiliary Copy operation will only use the amount of drives (streams) specified in the Stream(s) box at one time. That is, if it is configured to Combine source data streams to 1 streams it will use one tape at a time until it fills that tape and then moves on the next media.
5. Click OK.
6. A message appears, that tells you that combine streams for destination copy with tape will cause restore issues for backups of SQL and Sybase agent subclients. This is because data recovery operation for SQL and Sybase agents is not supported when secondary copy is configured on the tape. The data from this destination copy must be copied to a disk copy, and then restored should be performed only from that disk copy. Click OK to continue. Important: Do not exceed the number of physical drives in your tape library.