Vicki: The reserve percentage works this way, as I understand it. Someone please correct me if I have the details wrong:
The "reserve" setting is the amount of "available holding disk" to hold back to do degraded mode incremental dumps if Amanda cannot write to a tape. For example, say you have a 50 GB holding disk and your "reserve" setting is 50 (for 50 percent reserved). If you start out the day with all 50 GB of holding disk free, then it will "reserve" one-half of the disk for incremental dumps in degraded mode. Amanda will schedule up to 25 GB of level-0 dumps if the tape is not available. If you start the next day with 30 GB of holding disk free and the same "reserve" setting of 50, then Amanda will schedule up to 15 GB of level-0 dumps for the day, reserving the other 15 GB for incremental dumps in degraded mode. So, the "reserve" setting is the amount of "available holding disk" to hold back to do degraded mode incremental dumps if the tape drive is not accessible or there is no available Amanda tape (for example, if you forgot to change the tape before Amanda ran today). Note that the percent is against the available storage, so if your reserve percentage is less than 100 percent (the default), then Amanda will try to use that amount of holding disk for level-0 dumps each day. Note also that the default for "reserve" is 100 percent, which translates to Amanda skipping any full dumps in degraded mode. Depending on the amount of space you have devoted to holding disk, this may or may not work well for you. Questions? Don Donald L. (Don) Ritchey Information Technology Exelon Corporation -----Original Message----- From: Vicki Stanfield [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 3:14 PM To: amanda-users@amanda.org Subject: Re: Data loss if configuration of amanda.conf is not right. On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 10:38 -0500, Jon LaBadie wrote: > On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 09:57:22AM -0500, Vicki Stanfield wrote: > > > > Thanks. I was unsure of whether this was a potential problem or not. As > > long as Amanda tells me that there was a problem and dumps to the spool, > > I am happy. > > Make sure your "holding disk" space is sufficiently large and > that your "reserve" parameter is set to some value smaller > than the default 100%. The reserve aspect is to reserve the > holding disk for incrementals only when there are tape drive > problems. If your holding disk is sufficiently large, you > can also hold some full backups so the reserve should be > decreased. I have enough holding disk for several days > of normal dumps (> 1wk) and use a reserve of 20%. > > jl I'm not sure that I correctly understand the reserve parameter. I have heard that it is used to get amanda to degrade full dumps to merely incremental dumps if the holding disk gets full. I assume the percentage refers to how full. So how does degrading to incrementals help if the holding disk is 100% full? What am I misunderstanding here? I can understand saying that if the holding disk is 75% full, switch to incrementals though. Vicki ************************************************************************ This e-mail and any of its attachments may contain Exelon Corporation proprietary information, which is privileged, confidential, or subject to copyright belonging to the Exelon Corporation family of Companies. This e-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and attachments to this e-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any copy of this e-mail and any printout. Thank You. ************************************************************************