By default, many of these cmdlets return a lot of items, which makes them output a list instead of a table.Run an inventory to discover what backup tapes are in the tape drives: Get-BETape Drive Device | Submit-BEInventory Job | select Name, Job Type, Schedule, Storage | ft –auto When the inventory completes, use the Get-BETape Drive Device cmdlet to retrieve the name of the backup tape in each tape drive.To force the clean-up of old, expired data you need to do the following (all of this is predicated on Backup Exec 2012, older versions may operate differently).Go to your storage: Click in to it then into the Backup Sets … Click Yes to all Depending on what is in the backup set you want to delete you may get prompted as follows: I want the data deleted so click Delete this set and all dependent backup sets … The green progress bar will appear at some point and slowly update, be patient.

This is software that has been around a very long time and it shows in the depth of its features. There are two issues: I think it worth keeping the results just in case you need to talk to support at some point. After this completes we see the start of the wizard. I like to see default of Local but option of remote. My ideal set of options is around 4700 CAD and that is just crazy for my needs. Including an update for SQL I am going to do it and see how it impacts things. So point at the yellow odd icon at the top left, follow that by selecting Configuration and Settings, and finally select Backup Exec Settings.

Backup Exec is supposed to clear (prune) expired data on a regular basis but the process can mess up more often than not.

The end result is you can run out of space on your media even though your jobs are set to “overwrite” older media.

Formerly unhappy Backup Exec 2012 customers applauded Symantec's changes to its SMB backup application following criticism of the software on user forums and social media.

However, customers are still waiting for the most important alteration to show up in an anticipated service pack update.