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Supergoof's avatar
Supergoof
Level 4
13 years ago

Backup size of Windows Server 2008 R2

Hello,

I'm not writing about a problem as such but about a curiosity.

I have several Windows Server 2008 R2 clients in my NetBackup domain and recently I noticed that the backup footprint of the Windows Server 2008 R2's are quite a bit larger than the Windows Server 2003 clients.

I installed a new Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2003 and a Ubuntu linux server. Joined them as backup clients and put them in a policy with a retention of 2 full and 6 Diff. Incr. backups.

The three OS'es take up the following space:

Used backup space
OS: Space in GB:
Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS 5.5
Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard SP1 76
Windows Server 2003 Standard x64 SP2 25

I was chocked to see this difference so I set the 2008 R2 server up with the built in Windows Server Backup just to compare.

 

Windows Server Backup does the same job with 16.75 GB. How can that be ?

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  • Mark_Solutions's avatar
    Mark_Solutions
    13 years ago

    Windows 2008 has a far bigger System State - or Shadow Copy Components as it is called now - and therin lies the clue.

    2008 usually has Shadow Copies set up by default - so the System Volume Information folder holds shadow copies of the system, restore points etc. etc. etc.

    Right click on your C drive and select Properties - go to the Shadow Copies tab and it will show you how much is being used and how many Shadow Copies it has

    Hope this helps

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  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    What does your policy look like? Backup type? Backup selection?

  • Supergoof's avatar
    Supergoof
    Level 4
    13 years ago

    The policy looks like this for the windows servers:

    Policy Type:         MS-Windows
    Include:  ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES

    Type:                Full Backup
    Frequency:           every 7 days
    Retention Level:     1 (2 weeks)

    Type:                Differential Incremental Backup
    Frequency:           every 1 day
    Retention Level:     0 (1 week)

    So they have 2 full and 6 daily images each.

    I'm just wondering if this is normal for windows server 2008 to be so large compared to earlier versions.

    Regards

    Bo

  • revarooo's avatar
    revarooo
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Do you have any other drives other than C:\ ? ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES will pick those up too!

    Your Windows Backup is just backing up the C:\ drive.

  • Supergoof's avatar
    Supergoof
    Level 4
    13 years ago

    My test servers just have C:\

    On the Win2008 R2 server I have performed the Windows Server Backup test backups to a dedicated X:\ drive that is excluded in the NetBackup job on this client.

    The huge backup footprint was there even before I attached the X: drive and set up the Windows Server Backup.

  • Marianne's avatar
    Marianne
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Select 'Allow Multiple Data Streams' in policy attributes.

    This will generate separate streams for C:\ and Shadow Copy Components.

    To me it is normal for W2008 to be bigger than W2003, like W2003 was bigger than W2000...

  • Supergoof's avatar
    Supergoof
    Level 4
    13 years ago

    Hello Marianne

    I am allready running multiple datastreams, this makes no difference in regard to backup image size. I'm just wondering what the big difference between MS WSB and NetBackup is as to explain the big data difference in backup images.

  • Mark_Solutions's avatar
    Mark_Solutions
    Level 6
    13 years ago

    Windows 2008 has a far bigger System State - or Shadow Copy Components as it is called now - and therin lies the clue.

    2008 usually has Shadow Copies set up by default - so the System Volume Information folder holds shadow copies of the system, restore points etc. etc. etc.

    Right click on your C drive and select Properties - go to the Shadow Copies tab and it will show you how much is being used and how many Shadow Copies it has

    Hope this helps

  • Supergoof's avatar
    Supergoof
    Level 4
    13 years ago

    According to support:

    Add up to 8 GB for shadow copy components.

    shadow copy components backup is always full even if the backup type is incremental.

     

    On my test server the Shadow Copy Component backup is around 11 GB pr. job.

    I think I remember reading something about the Shadow Copy Component for System now supporting incremental backups.in R2. This would explain the much smaller backup size for the Windows Server Backup tool.

  • Supergoof's avatar
    Supergoof
    Level 4
    13 years ago

    From TechNet

    Improved options for system state backups and recoveries. You can now use the Windows Server Backup snap-in user interface to create backups that you can use to perform system state recoveries. In addition, you can now use a single backup to back up both the system state and other data on your server. These system state backups are now faster and require less space for multiple versions because they use shadow copies for versioning, similar to volume based backups, and not individual folders for each version. For more information about how system state backups are stored on Windows Server 2008 R2, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=143713.

    See also Jim B's answer here http://serverfault.com/questions/123881/windows-server-2008-system-state-backup