Preparing archive media

If you would like to clear existing data from your archive media before you begin archiving Unitrends backups, you can reformat the media and delete all existing data using the procedure described in this section. For the disk archiving unit, eSATA, and USB archive devices, it is recommended that you prepare new drives before they are used for the first time. Once you have archived with the drives, you can prepare them again, if desired, to permanently delete all existing data. (For more details about archiving to disk devices, see Archiving to Disk.) The prepare operation is possible only if the media is unmounted.

Before preparing media that contains data, be sure that you have another copy of the data or that you no longer need it. Once you prepare the media, its data cannot be retrieved.

Warning!      This procedure permanently deletes any existing data and formats the drive.

To prepare archive media

1

Log in to the Unitrends system and select Archive > Media. Connected media display in the Archive Media area. For details, see To view connected media. To refresh, click re-scan for media.

2

Select the media in the Archive Media area. A Media Label field displays at the bottom of the screen.

3

Enter a media label for this drive or group of drives.

Labels may be a maximum of 12 alphanumeric characters and may include an underscore. Use a descriptive labeling system so you can easily locate the drive(s) in the event that this data is required for a restore.

For multi-drive disk-archiving systems, you may load one or more drives. Archives are written across all available drives. Once you archive to multiple drives, you must have all drives to restore data as the system treats them as a single logical volume. See To add a drive to a multi-drive system.

4

Click Prepare below.

Warning!      This option should be used with extreme caution. Any existing data is permanently deleted from the media.

5

Click Yes to confirm that you wish to prepare the media.

6

The system permanently deletes any existing data and formats the media with the Unitrends file system. The light bulb icon changes from gray to yellow, indicating that the drive(s) is now ready for use.