Backing up closed Partition and indexes

thank you WiTSend,

will the CAB files be kept on the same drive/lun where the closed paritions are? What will happen if retention process starts on these closed parition.

cheers

Hi EV,

Yes the collection files are kept in exactly the same folder except one level up from where the DVS files are kept, it will speed up backups as well as WiT says above.

Your users will not notice any difference in recall times whatsoever, it is so small that it isnt worth thinking about to be honest.

It is well worth doing.

In relation to retention, EV will still delete exactly what it is meant to delete in the exact same way so that is nothing to worry about either, it will simply mark for deletion the items that have reached the retention period (This process is called Sparse Collections) but, and this is where the difference is, it will only remove those actual files from the CAB files once the items within that cab file are a certain percentage of the file itself.

Have a look here, its a very good explanation from JesusWept  -  https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/how-collections-and-sparse-collections-work

EV Rocks,

Collections will definitely improve the speed of the backup process since it would backup less files. As Ben mentioned, collection files are kept in exactly the same folder except one level up from where the DVS files are kept. Also, this technote can provide you additional information about the sparse collections and some registry settings:

How do Sparse Collections and the SparseCollectionPercentage setting work?
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH87400

Once all the DVS files are collected, since the partition is closed, you can take a full backup and you wouldn't need to backup the partition again since Enterprise Vault doesn't add more data to the closed partitions. However, when the DVS files are collected, if a user opens an archived item where the DVS files were collected, EV will extract the DVS files back to the partition with an ARCHDVS extension. This operation will consume additional space in your storage.

I have seen cases, for instance with FSA archiving, where a teh DVS files are collected and then a user performs a mass recall of placeholders. In the Enterprise Vault partition, you might run out of space because EV will extract several DVS files for this operation. Normally, these ARCHDVS files are removed by the StorageFileWatch process later but this is something you might want to keep in mind after enabling collections.

I hope this helps.

Personallly I would suggest keeping the 'once a month' backup procedure as deletions do happen, especially with Storage Expiry and Retentions, and if you do not backup the closed partitions, then you have a DR situation, you will be left with drastcially out of sync SQL references in relation to Physical storage data, leading onto a large EVSVR operation on the other end where you will need to delete a large amount of data stored on the closed partitions.

Or at least a backup procedure that suits the business needs at the very least.

Yes.You are right ... I forgot about Storage Expiry and user deletions. Good catch,

I will follow your recommendation and Thank you all for your valuable input and much appreciated.