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B2D - Best practices for NTFS volume size on iSCSI SAN target

Jeffrey_Owen
Level 3

Greetings,

 

We're just in the process of getting a iSCS SAN installed and configured in our environment.  One of the first things we're looking at doing is moving our Backup Exec backups (7tb full) to B2D targets on the SAN.  Currently we're using a tape library with 3x LTO3 drives.

 

We're looking at about 11tb of SAN storage for B2D.  iSCSI LUN limitations of 2tb mean that we're ending up with 6 LUNs that are slightly under 2tb each.

 

The main thing I'm wondering about right now, is whether I should be looking at creating 6 separate Windows volumes for the 6 separate LUNs on my Backup Exec media server?  Or should I span the 6 LUNs into 1 logical Windows volume (total size approx 11tb)?

 

6 separate volumes means 6 separate B2D targets.  But I believe I can configure these in a device pool, to effectively use them as a singular target.  1 large volume means only creating 1 B2D target and pointing backup jobs directly to it.

 

I'd really appreciate any input or thoughts anyone would like to offer on this part in my design.  I've been using Backup Exec for many years, but B2D and SANs are both new areas for me.

 

Thanks very much,

 

Jeff

 

 

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Jeffrey_Owen
Level 3

Well, just to answer my own question.  We'll be going with 6 separate Windows volumes and configuring B2D targets in each volume.

 

This is due to iSCSI not supporting dynamic disks, and therefor making a Windows spanned volume impossible.

 

At this point I'm kinda regretting not pushing to put the B2D data on FC SAN storage, thus avoiding the 2tb LUN size limitation.  Oh well.

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1 REPLY 1

Jeffrey_Owen
Level 3

Well, just to answer my own question.  We'll be going with 6 separate Windows volumes and configuring B2D targets in each volume.

 

This is due to iSCSI not supporting dynamic disks, and therefor making a Windows spanned volume impossible.

 

At this point I'm kinda regretting not pushing to put the B2D data on FC SAN storage, thus avoiding the 2tb LUN size limitation.  Oh well.