BE2012 Backup Selections: Shares

[melview1]

Backup Exec 2012 v14.0 Rev. 1798 (64-bit)

Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard (Server and Agent)

I have BE2012 Server backing up 6 servers, including itself.  All have agents installed.  I have configured a backup job for a particular server that includes the following selections:

C:     --     32GB

LocalShare1 (on D:)     --     178GB

LocalShare2 (on D:)     --     8.5GB

Utility Partition & System State

The backup job completes without errors, warnings or exceptions, but I noticed that the backed up size is only 28GB.  That seemed awfully small to me.  Upon looking at what the restore options were on this job, I noticed that LocalShare1 and LocalShare2 do not show up in the Resource View when choosing which files to restore.  I only see files and folders in C:.  The System State and Utility Partition also look present.

My question is what exactly does BE2012 backup when I select any of the shares present on a machine?  In my case, it looks like it does nothing.  All I can suspect is that selecting these options is applicable to a system state restore, so it knows to create a share again, and it doesn't mean it is backing up the files in the share.  I would guess that if I selected the actual location of the share via a drive letter (i.e. D:\Program Files\LocalShare1) rather than through the share (\\server\LocalShare1) that is automatically shown, then it would probably backup the files as I would expect.  I'd just like to understand the purpose of the share selection options so I don't have a false expectation on what is actually being backed up.

Thanks.

--Mark

[Siddhant_Saini]

Hello Mark, I was wondering if you added the server as a File Server and then you performed a backup of those shares.. Reference:  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH189560

[lmosla]

also since this is on a local drive than to capture the data you could just backup the direct location as you mentioned ( D:\Program Files\LocalShare1) . The setting for backing up a share is for backing up a share over the network   

[melview1]

@sidd3009

The server in question was added as a Microsoft Windows Computer and the files of the shares in question are local to that server.

@Imosla

That's what I was thinking and that is the "work-around" that I have implemented, but wanted to understand why selecting the shares doesn't do anything.  Is the answer that if the files of the share happens to be local, then it does nothing, but if the files of the share are over the network (like in a dfs share?), then it will actually backup the files?  If this is true, it's quite misleading to show local shares in the selections list.

Thanks for the help thus far.

--Mark

[lmosla]

In Configuration and Settings < Backup Exec Settings < Network and Security is Enable selection of user shares selected?  

[melview1]

Yes

[pkh · Accepted solution]

Unless you have a very good reason, there is no point in backing up a share.  You might as well back up the original location.  You would not be able to restore the share permissions because these are kept in the registry.

For me, I disable the selection of user shares so that I do not backup the same data twice.

[melview1]

I have disabled shares according to Imosla's suggestion and that removes confusion.  Although, I'm not sure I actually got an answer to my question and I still don't know what backing up a share when enabled actually does.