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AlexV's avatar
AlexV
Level 3
7 years ago

Exchange backup to deduplication storage or not?

I'm wondering what are your thoughts about this process...

We currently backup our Exchange 2010 server like so. Full backup (MB database and logs) once a week, send it to our deduplication storage and then, duplicate the job to another deduplication storage offsite and also duplicate it to the tape. Incremental everyday to simple disk and duplicate it to another simple disk offsite.

When the duplicate job for the tape run, the speed is very slow, yes I know, it's because of the rehydratation process. The total size of the data is almost 1 TB. So the job take, on average, 2 days to run, plus or less 48 hours. During that time, the tape is unavailable for other, critical jobs.

I need that tape drive for other jobs, 2 days is too long for me, I want to submit to my boss, the architect of the infrastructure, the point that we should store the full backup to a simple disk storage instead of the deduplication store so that the job of the duplication to the tape is much faster.

The point that he will make is that we save a lot of space when storing the full exchange backup to the deduplication storage.

But I'm wondering if we save that much space by sending the backup to the dedup storage. I can't find the info of the space that the backup of Exchange take on the dedup itself.

What is your experiences and thoughts about this process?

Thx for sharing.

16
Deduplication
Exchange 2010
Windows Server 2008 R2

4 Replies

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  • jurgen_barbieur's avatar
    jurgen_barbieur
    Level 6
    7 years ago

    why don't you take a look from another point of view?

    what is the real purpose of your exchange backup? 

    - restores of single items?

    - restore of exchange in case of disaster?

    - resore of exchange data in case of disaster?

    -other?

    when the above question is answered, you can design a backup solution that meets your requirements.

     

    • AlexV's avatar
      AlexV
      Level 3
      7 years ago

      All of these points have been addressed. We did have a disaster a couple of months ago and the backup worked fine. This is not the question I'm having here.

      My question is more related to the fact that : The space we are saving in the deduplication storage for the exchange backup ,is it worth more than the long time it take to duplicate the backup to the tape drive. Or vice versa, would it be more efficient to store the exchange backup in a simple disk storage (and taking more space for the backup) to be able to duplicate it faster to a tape drive.

      Is it possible to get the efficiency ratio of the compression of the exchange backup only in the deduplication storage? Having this info would help me make a better decision.

      • Colin_Weaver's avatar
        Colin_Weaver
        Moderator
        7 years ago

        Isn't the deduplication ratio provided in the job log of the Exchange backup to deduplication?