With Backup Exec, you can maximize your hardware investment by organizing your devices in one or both of the following methods:

• Device pools. Devices are grouped so that jobs assigned to the device pool are run on the first available device.

  See Adding devices by using the Hot-swappable Device Wizard.

  Setting up device pools offers the following benefits:

  • Automatic job rescheduling. If a device fails while a job is running on it, that job is rescheduled and placed on hold. Other scheduled jobs are rerouted to working devices in the device pool.

  • Concurrent processing. Devices in the device pool run different jobs at the same time, allowing maximum hardware efficiency.

  • Dynamic load balancing. Jobs are more evenly distributed between all of the devices included in the device pool when running simultaneous jobs.

• Cascaded drive pools. Drives of the same type are linked together so that large backup jobs that exceed the capacity of the media in one drive automatically continue on the media in the next drive that is defined in the pool. The cascaded drives appear logically as one device.