A media pool is a collection of media managed as a unit.
Each media pool is assigned a name and the media are organized according to serial numbers. The serial numbers assigned are permanent and if you are using a device with a bar code reader, the bar code labels will be used for the serial number of the media. The media pools are organized by the range of serial numbers of the media they contain and are divided into two sets, the Save Set and the Scratch Set.
The set of media containing important data that can not be overwritten is called the Save Set. Once the media has passed certain criteria in a save set they will be recycled and re-used.
Those media from the Save Set that can be re-used and overwritten are placed in the Scratch Set because they have met several criteria (minimum number of media to save and retention period).
Each time a media in the Scratch Set is written to, it moves from the Scratch Set to the Save Set. That media will move back to the Scratch Set once the specified criteria have been met.
Media pools can be applied to any media, regardless of the backup type or method selected. All Rotation backup jobs will create their own media pool based on the name entered in the Media Pool Name field.
GFS backup uses three media pools: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly. These three pools are also based on the information entered in the Media Pool Name Prefix field. For example, if you enter ACTG as the Media Pool Name Prefix for an GFS backup job, the Daily media pool name would be ACTG_DLY.
For a simple (single media pool) rotation, you specify the complete name for the media pool.
For more information regarding GFS backups, see `Selecting a Backup method'.