Backup Exec *.dr Files - When are they updated, and is there enough point to them?

  1. After every full backup of the following resources

          a. NTFS volumes

          b. Utility Partitions

          c. Shadow Copy Components

          d. System State

Note that you can select the above resources at the volume level in the Backup Exec UI and you can still exclude some of the files and folders underneath the selection, that you think are not critical for a disaster recovery scenario, and the .DR file will still be updated considering the set as a 'DR compatible set'.

  2. After every Incremental or differential backup of the above resources. Again selection should be done at the volume level and not on a individual file or folder level.

Note that allowing the exclusion of certain files & folders from underneath the volume level selection and still considering the backup set as a 'DR compatible set' can be configured using the registry key (also discussed in http://support.veritas.com/docs/274187)

      'DR Update Allow Excludes' REG_DWORD    1

under  "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Symantec\Backup Exec For Windows\Backup Exec\Engine\IDR" ( by default exclusions are allowed ).

You can perform a full backup of your critical volumes (boot and system volumes & Active Directory database related volumes) to create the .DR file and can keep updating the .DR file with incrementals later. You should have performed atleast one full backup of the volume though.

Regarding bootable tape, the .DR file is not included in the tape image since the tape image has to be written first to the tape (so that it can boot) as part of the backup. Meaning by the time the backup job completes the tape image has already been written making the .DR file inside the tape image obsolete. This is the reason the .DR file has to be provided from another medium ( either through floppy/USB media or through network ) during a bootable tape based IDR.