something wrong here - GRT does not need you to backup the data twice - you can restore either the whole database OR the individual mail messages from the single backup set (which should be in a single IMG folder for a full backup anyway)
The backup job log should only show one iteration of the mailbox database being backed up and you should only have one job running.
Also the EDB files etc should be automatically excluded from the backup via the drive letter, as such if you are doing both a mailbox database backup and a driver letter backup and belive that the EDB files are being backed up via the driver letter backup then Automatic File Exclusion may not be working.
BTW to get your exchange backups on tape you should be duplicating the weekly or monthly disk based ones and not running separate original backups (although if you only run full backups this is potentially less of a problem
Note: please be aware that a GRT job on tape requires a staging area of at least the size of the mailbox database in order to do a GRT restore and that the disk one just uses the disk directly for a GRT restore so does not need staging.
Colin,
Thank you for the reply. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is what I am seeing in my Exchange backup
As mentioned, I am seeing two DB's The 532GB is what is selected if I try to restore "Server Database or Storage Group" and the 414GB (File Folder) is what is selected if I do a "Mailbox Items" restore. Also of note, This image is from one of the jobs that where all of the message folders are saved.
I can also pull the actual job description I am using to create this BU if that would shed any light on the subject
Bob
If you look at the properties of that backup set (or the job log for the job that created it) it will give you an IMG folder name which you can then look for in Windows Explorer on your disk - check the size of what is in the IMG folder to compare with the size of your exchange database
Property size of that backup set is 951GB (verified on the property page of the job and the Backup to Disk details of backup sets)
The actual size of the EDB file is 532GB (as verified on the Exchange server)
[OOPS... I needed to read more carefully... I will try to find the image folder name and verify the size you suggested.. give me a minute .. ]
There are two Image folders. One contains the mailbox database file (532GB) and the other contains the public folder database (776MB)
