cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

BE 2010 (R2) still not overwriting the IMG folders!!

Edward_Charles
Level 6

We have various client setup with BE 2010 (some have R2 but makes no difference in this IMG overwriting issue).

I've searched this Symantec forum and found several posts re: the IMG folders overwriting issue from some time ago but not working solution yet.

We have the following set: Media Overwrite protection level: Full (for Media settings to apply), Media Overwrite options: Overwrite Recycable before scratch media, Media Set Properties - OPP 1 hour and APP 0 hours.

We use the Removable B2D folders for our offsite hotswapping SATA drives and use the normal B2D folders for our additional LAN backups.

We have 1 job for each day of the week to run to 5 different normal B2D folders and there the IMG folders overwrite properly.

We have 1 daily job (same job runs every day) to run to 1 removable B2D folder and there the IMG folders fail to overwrite even though we use the same settings.

I know BE 2010 doesn't consider the "removable SATA" drives removable and they suggest to use the normal B2D folders instead, we'll try that but not sure if that will help in overwriting these IMG folders as currently having to do this manually everywhere requires way to much user action.

Any thoughs or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

You should be using normal B2D folders as removable B2D folders are meant for things like Jaz drives.

When setting up your rotating disk, each disk should have their own drive letter and the names of the folders on each drive should be different.  Read my article on this subject.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/how-rotate-external-harddisks

There is no need to inventory the drive after they are plugged in.  

For B2D jobs, you should always specify overwrite in your job properties and not append.  This may be the cause of your problem

View solution in original post

16 REPLIES 16

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Still no coments yet, please could someone answer this question above??

Thank you.

Ken_Putnam
Level 6

Couple of others are having similar problems

Don't have any answer for you, but I did set the Support Flag to draw this to the Symnatec folks' attention

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Great thank you. We're really counting on this to get it resolved!

Thanks

Zuby
Level 3

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Thanks for that link, we checked it out and found our GRT registry setting described in that article is set to the default of 1.

I've read some other articles that say change it to 0.

Also I've read when changing drives make sure each time the new drive gets inserted it needs to be inventoried?

Any thoughs on this? All we want to achieve is simply to always overwrite the destination as we make sure the proper drive is in or for a LAN backup we just want it to overwrite the folder everytime.

How do I know what to set this GRT registry setting to if I want all the IMG folders to be overwritten each time?

For removable SATA hard drives should we not be using the removable B2D folders but use the normal B2D folders (like we do for LAN destinations) instead?

I would appreciate any imput on this.

Thank you.

Regards,

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

You should be using normal B2D folders as removable B2D folders are meant for things like Jaz drives.

When setting up your rotating disk, each disk should have their own drive letter and the names of the folders on each drive should be different.  Read my article on this subject.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/how-rotate-external-harddisks

There is no need to inventory the drive after they are plugged in.  

For B2D jobs, you should always specify overwrite in your job properties and not append.  This may be the cause of your problem

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Some more info that I just aded to the thread for pkh's artcile as well

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO55855

 

Also note that the registry key change mentioend in the article by Zuby should rarely be needed unless you are so tight on disk space that a large job overwriting the IMG of a small job whould not end up with enough space. This registry key will not help where the job does not start as an overwerite and where the media set overwrite protcetion is configured incorrectly.

 

 

sbora
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Hello Edward,

 

It seems that you are facing issue documented in following article:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH70364

This issue was resolved in BE 12.5 and BE 2010 R1 in form of a hotifx however after applying the HF you need to erase everything (all IMG folders) from each disk that is used as removable B2D and start fresh. You need to erase those IMG folders from BE as well. Also an inventory has to be performed everytime the disk is swapped.

If you have not started from scratch after applying the fix then you are facing this issue. Simple way to find out if you are facing this issue or not:

Run a backup to removable B2D folder. Note down the IMG folder created by the backup and the media set in which the IMG is placed. Now swap the disk with second disk and inventory the second disk. Again swap it with the first disk and inventory it. Check the IMG folder created by the backup job, it should still be listed under the same media set. If it is not listed under original media set and has moved to Imported media set then you are affected by the issue documented in the above article and you will have to delete all IMG's from the each disk and BE and start all over. You have to do it once for all the disks used in removable B2D. Next time the same disk is connected you will see that the IMG's have not moved to Imported media set and instead once the OPP expires it will be recycable.

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Thank you Colin for that input.

We'll try to make it work now using Device pools instead.

Regards,

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Thank you pkh for your quick reply back!

We'll review that article and create device pools instead (never used those before).

What do you mean by each disk should have it's own drive letter, as Windows will give it the same letter each time a different drive is inserted in the same bay. The Media Set settings we use are OPP 1 hour and AP 0 hours. Would that be ok compared to what you refer to in step 4 in your article?

Sorry but I am a bit confused by SBora's reply in this post as our approach. It seems to apply to removable B2D folders (only)? Would we even need to apply this hotfix if we have R2?

Thanks for your help in this.

Regards,

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

This different drive letters requirement is for older versions of BE.  Since you are using BE 2010 R2, it should be o.k.

If you use a short OPP then you run into the danger of overwriting your files if you forget to remove that particular disk. 

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Hi edward,

 

Have you considered upgrading to BE 2010 R3 to see if this resolves the issue? R3 is known to resolve a number of issues on previous versions, and since it is a free upgrade and uses the same license keys as what you have now, it might actually be worth it.

Just grab a copy of your Data and Catalogs folders before doing anything. report back on the outcome if you do the upgrade...

 

Thanks!

sbora
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Hello Edward,

If you are using R2 then you do not need to apply the patch, the other steps to fix the issue remains the same.

However these steps are meant for Removable B2D only and “Removable Backup to Disk” should ONLY be used if a cartridge based removable drive is used. Removable backup to disk should not be used with USB drives or Removable SATA drives.

As suggested by pkh and Colin in earlier posts you should use normal B2D in your setup. Normal B2D will mostly not have this problem of not overwriting the IMG folders.

Edward_Charles
Level 6

Ok, thanks pkh for your reply. That makes sense now.

Yes we're aware if the fact it will overwrite any data on the drive which is exactly what we want so we always have the latest backup that way even if someone forgets to change the daily drive.

We have muliple drives so we can always go back in time further if required.

Thanks

Edward_Charles
Level 6

THanks for your reply.

Yes we should probably upgrade to the R3 version. I assume it can just be re-installed overtop of the R2 and then update/reinstall all the remote agents?

Thanks

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

Yep and yep. But upgrade your agents AFTER running LiveUpdate. There are 6 patches that have been released.

As I mentioned though, just grab a copy of your Data/Catalogs folders before doing anything!