The retention period is the number of days in which media will remain in the Save Set. Each media pool's Scratch Set and Save Set will have a default retention period and minimum number of media to save. In a GFS rotation scheme, each backup media will be retained in the same set until the retention period runs out. The media will be reused on the day after the retention period expires provided that the minimum number of media exists in the save set.
The retention time for media depends on the media pool to which the media is assigned, daily (_DLY), weekly (_WLY), or monthly (_MLY).
All GFS rotation schemes have the following retention times for each media pool:
Monthly media is saved throughout the year. They can and should be taken off-site for storage.
Media in the scratch set is recycled reusing the oldest media in the scratch set first. Thus, in a GFS rotation scheme, a set number of media in a media pool is used for your backup jobs. If there is no media in the scratch set, ARCserveIT will prompt you to provide blank media for the backup jobs.