About assigning and deassigning volumes

An assigned volume is one that is reserved for exclusive use by NetBackup. A volume is set to the assigned state when either application writes data on it for the first time. The time of the assignment appears in the Time Assigned column for the volume in the NetBackup Administration Console Volumes pane. When a volume is assigned, you cannot delete it or change its volume pool.

A volume remains assigned until NetBackup deassigns it.

NetBackup deassigns a volume only when the data is no longer required, as follows:

For regular backup volumes, when the retention period has expired for all the backups on the volume.
For catalog backup volumes, when you stop using it for catalog backups.

To determine which application currently uses a volume, see the Application column of the Volumes pane.