Forum Discussion

Inti's avatar
Inti
Level 4
11 years ago
Solved

GRT-Enabled Backups on GPT-Partitioned VMware-VMDKs

Hi,

 

I just run into the Issue, that GRT-Enabled Backups via AVVI on GPT-Partitioned VMDKs in VMware fail with an exception and are not supported as stated in the SCL.

Does anyone know the technical background of this limitation and if there might be a chance to get this feature later on with another ServicePack ?

I wonder because it seems to be possible with Micsoroft Hyper-V based VMs (according to the SCL: http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH217478&key=15047&basecat=COMPATIBILITY_LIST&actp=LIST ).

The problem is, that 2TB+ Volumes are getting more common even for smaller customers and doing agent level backups in VMs prevent me from doing SAN-based backups, which are way faster especially with FC. Switching off GRT is also not an option as this is one of the most basic backup features and about 75% of my restore jobs are single-file or directory based restores on file servers.

Source: http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH69498&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1415000582760

 

Regards,

 

inti

2014
Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructure
Agents
Backing Up
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec
Features
Virtualization
Windows Server (2003-2008)
  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    10 years ago

    If you check the BE 15 readme document http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC8201

    You will find that in the section called "What's new in Backup Exec 15 agents and options" we clearly state that we now support "File/folder-level GRT and application-level GRT backups and restores of virtual machines that have GPT partitioned disks"

    As such GPT should allow GRT capability for both applications and file systems.

    Any customers having issues with GPT disks during VMware backups needs to log a support case, and if for some reason they are advised of lack of support quote the readme provided above.

  • VJware's avatar
    VJware
    Level 6
    10 years ago

    Its actually BE 15 and not BE 2015 :)

    BE 15 uses VDDK 6.0, so yes, it is possible. There seems to be an issue with the SCL links, so you could have a look @ the last few lines of this link - http://www.symantec.com/page.jsp?id=introducing-backup-exec-15&id=introducing-backup-exec-2015

    And lastly, VDDK 6.0 works only with ESXi 5.1, 5.5 and 6.0.

  • xadox's avatar
    xadox
    Level 5
    10 years ago

    Backup up our smaller virtual mashines with GPT volumes (around 300GB) is working great.

    But our big fileserver with a GPT volume with around 2,0TB is resulting in an error:

    Error "V-79-57344-38367 - Unable to create the virtual disk because the remote disk storage device could not be mapped to a drive letter" occurs for a VMware backup job.

  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    Please log a formal support case for this issue so that we can investigate in more depth.

  • xadox's avatar
    xadox
    Level 5
    10 years ago

    First answear of the support:

    ..."Backup of GPT Volumes with AVVI is not possible..."

    I think the supporting person was missing their own v15 release :(

  • alexey107's avatar
    alexey107
    Level 4
    10 years ago

    No it is still not possile with BE 15.
    The same issue with backing up file server (win 2012 R2) using GRT+SAN+AVVI.
    vSphere- 5.5.0 2068190
    file server: 5 vmdk x 2TB, 1 vmdk x 40GB. 3 volumes.

    That is really bad thing(((

  • Colin_Weaver's avatar
    Colin_Weaver
    Moderator
    10 years ago

    If you check the BE 15 readme document http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC8201

    You will find that in the section called "What's new in Backup Exec 15 agents and options" we clearly state that we now support "File/folder-level GRT and application-level GRT backups and restores of virtual machines that have GPT partitioned disks"

    As such GPT should allow GRT capability for both applications and file systems.

    Any customers having issues with GPT disks during VMware backups needs to log a support case, and if for some reason they are advised of lack of support quote the readme provided above.

  • pkh's avatar
    pkh
    Moderator
    10 years ago
    Being frustrated doesn't mean you can swear on the forum