Forum Discussion

hello0001's avatar
hello0001
Level 3
13 years ago

Backup Exec 12.5 with very large Catalogs folder

Hi all,

I am running Backup Exec 12.5 and currently the Catalogs folder is about 42GB. Is there any properly ways of trimming this folder down to a smaller size? Thank you very much for your help.

12.x and Earlier
Agents
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Features
Recovering
  • Backup_Exec1's avatar
    Backup_Exec1
    13 years ago

    Hi

    Q

    The Truncate Catalog option is always set to every 6 Months on my backup exec 12.5. However, it's been 2 years since I first used the Backup Exec 12.5 and there are still a lot of files created on year 2010. Thus, it looks like the Truncate Catalog option is not functioning properly. Do you have any suggestion?

     

    Ans

    1 Stop all Backup EXec services.

    2Go to the Catalogs folder. Arrange the files according to the Date Modified.

    3 Then you can manually delete the files from here. As there are files from year 2010 , So you can start deleting the older files till the date where you want it. So for example you start deleting it from year 2010 to  Feb 2012 ,for example which will catalog only from March 2012 to August 2012 which is 6 Months.

     

    Q  have another question. When you say "Re-Catalog", does it mean right click on the media and click on "Inventory"? If not, would you mind showing me how to Re-Catalog the media?

     

    Ans

     

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH33576

     

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH142684

     

    Also you can move the catalog location if you are running with space issues

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH74582

     

    Hope this helps

     

    Thanks

    .

  • Ken_Putnam's avatar
    Ken_Putnam
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    You can "truncate" the catalogs

    This will remove all the detail from the catalog files, but retain headers so the media doesn't become overwriteable.  You will need to re-catalog any of thes media you want to restore from

     

    See http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH7297

     

    or the v12.5 Admin Guide page 514

     

    One note.  This change is not retroactive, so you will need to manually remove any catalogs that you are sure you will not need anymore.   After doing this, make sure to rebuild the catalog indexe before trying a restore

    http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH35390

     

     

     

     

     

  • hello0001's avatar
    hello0001
    Level 3
    13 years ago

    Hi,

    The Truncate Catalog option is always set to every 6 Months on my backup exec 12.5. However, it's been 2 years since I first used the Backup Exec 12.5 and there are still a lot of files created on year 2010. Thus, it looks like the Truncate Catalog option is not functioning properly. Do you have any suggestion?

     

    I have another question. When you say "Re-Catalog", does it mean right click on the media and click on "Inventory"? If not, would you mind showing me how to Re-Catalog the media?

  • Backup_Exec1's avatar
    Backup_Exec1
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Hi

    Q

    The Truncate Catalog option is always set to every 6 Months on my backup exec 12.5. However, it's been 2 years since I first used the Backup Exec 12.5 and there are still a lot of files created on year 2010. Thus, it looks like the Truncate Catalog option is not functioning properly. Do you have any suggestion?

     

    Ans

    1 Stop all Backup EXec services.

    2Go to the Catalogs folder. Arrange the files according to the Date Modified.

    3 Then you can manually delete the files from here. As there are files from year 2010 , So you can start deleting the older files till the date where you want it. So for example you start deleting it from year 2010 to  Feb 2012 ,for example which will catalog only from March 2012 to August 2012 which is 6 Months.

     

    Q  have another question. When you say "Re-Catalog", does it mean right click on the media and click on "Inventory"? If not, would you mind showing me how to Re-Catalog the media?

     

    Ans

     

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH33576

     

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH142684

     

    Also you can move the catalog location if you are running with space issues

    http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH74582

     

    Hope this helps

     

    Thanks

    .

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    13 years ago

    When you truncate the catalogs, the header for the catalogs will still remain.  The details will be truncated and the size of the catalog file will be reduced, but the catalog itself will not be deleted.  This is why you are still seeing your catalogs from 2010.  The headers are there so that in the restore selection screen you can see that you have a backup set for that resource.  However, you would not be able to restore until you catalog the media because the details, what files are backed up, etc, are missing in the catalog.

    To catalog the media,  right-click on the media and select catalog.

    If you delete the catalog file, then you would not know which backup set is on which media, until you catalog the media.

  • hello0001's avatar
    hello0001
    Level 3
    13 years ago

    Thank you so much for all your help. I think these answer all of my questions.