Hello
I am experiencing a behavior that seems unusual compared to my previous experiences. I have three Tape pools with different retention policies. When I try to move a tape from one of these pools to the 'Free' pool, I receive a notification stating that moving the tape will cause it to be formatted.
Is this normal behavior? Additionally, how can I remove a tape from a pool without it being formatted?
Best answer by matheusgiovanini
Yes, this is expected.
When you move a tape to the Free pool, Veeam marks it as reusable. That’s why you see the formatting warning — not because it will be wiped immediately, but because it can be overwritten at any time.
There’s no way to remove a tape from a pool without impact:
If you want to keep the data safe, don’t move it to Free — export it or wait for retention to expire.
+21I believe that is normal because you are taking from a pool with settings to free pool so formatting so it can be pulled to another pool makes sense. Did you check the Veeam documentation?
+8In Veeam, a tape that belongs to a media pool is tightly associated with that pool’s:
When you move a tape to the Free pool, Veeam treats it as available for reuse. To safely reuse it, Veeam assumes it may need to:
So the warning is essentially saying:
👉 “If this tape gets reused, its contents will be overwritten.”
It doesn’t always mean an immediate format will happen at that exact moment — but it enables formatting/reuse, which is why the warning appears.
Have you already tried exporting the tape?
+9Yes, this is expected.
When you move a tape to the Free pool, Veeam marks it as reusable. That’s why you see the formatting warning — not because it will be wiped immediately, but because it can be overwritten at any time.
There’s no way to remove a tape from a pool without impact:
If you want to keep the data safe, don’t move it to Free — export it or wait for retention to expire.
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