Configuring the short erase feature
This recipe will cover how to configure your DPM server to enable short erase.
Getting ready
Erasing tapes is always a time-consuming process, and this is a very common scenario regardless of the product, as the tape will be formatted. A faster way is to perform a short erase.
How to do it…
Enter the DWORD UseShortErase
in the registry on the DPM server and reboot the server:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Agent
Provide the value of 00000000 in a DWORD.
How it works…
Short erase means that the data written to tapes will be overwritten with a NULL value that makes it appear empty
There's more…
For a tape to be erased, it must not contain any recovery points that are within the retention time.