Depending on the media policies you use, it is possible for the older volumes to become fragmented, especially if you append saves to active volumes and use different retention periods for those saves. The fragmentation occurs when some file sequences expire on the volume before other file sequences. If the fragmented volumes are filled, the volumes are not usable until all file sequences have expired.
Reclamation is a process in which the active file sequences are copied to a new volume so the old fragmented volume can be expired and returned to the scratch pool. For example, assume volume VOL001 has four active file sequences 5, 167, 452, and 511, and VOL002 has three active file sequences 10, 17, and 53. If you could reclaim these two volumes to a third volume, VOL00A at file sequences 1 through 7, then volumes VOL001 and VOL002 would become available for reuse.
Using media reclamation can help you reduce media purchases by allowing you to reuse the media you have, or enable you to move the active data onto media of higher density.
The BRMS System i Navigator client can assist you with your reclamation task. To start the Reclaim Wizard: