Backup Exec 2010 R2 Catalog Folder is 156GB. Need to reduce without deleting everything

[lokiju]

The catalog folder for backup exec 2010 R2 is a huge 156GB currently and I don't have much additional free space to spare.

I checked the size of the free space on the drive it's on this past friday and it had 21GB free. After the weekend jobs have run and rechecking it today (Monday after) the free space is now 12.5GB. In one weekend it's consumed a 8.5GB. At this rate I only have a few days tops before the disk is out of space.

I'd like to know how to turncate and clean up the catalog data as well as understand what if any files in the direcotry might not be valid or needed anymore. I'd like to keep the most recent catalog data possible within reason. My tape retention currently is 7 weeks so any catalog data would idealy go back that far  at least.

[AmolB]

To truncate catalogs Refer to  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH7297

Else you can move the catalogs to an alternate location, refer to the below link.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH74582

[CraigV · Accepted solution]

That's past being huge!!!

I'd look at your jobs first and make sure you're not logging everything that goes on during a backup. The more information logged, the larger each catalog file is going to be. Check: Tools --> Options --> Job Logs. Summary Information is the default, and if you don't need anything else, go for this.

Also, check the catalog truncation under: Tools --> Options --> Catalog (and select: Truncate catalogs after: ). Set this to a lower time limit (default is 2 months).

There is also the option of moving your catalogs to another drive with enough space, assuming you really want to keep them all. You can do this under the same location as in the suggestion above.

Alternatively, delete any old catalogs you no longer need. The downside to this is that if you have to restore data from a deleted date, you're going to have to recatalog the tape.

Thanks!

[Kiran_Bandi]

Just for your information..

Enabling truncate catalogs option will not truncate the catalogs which are already there. But the catalogs which will be generated from now on will be truncated.

Regards...

[lokiju]

Great info! Thanks so much!

The job log was set to summary but the autotruncate option wasn't checked. I'm not sure if it should of been or not by default but this has been upgraded from previous versions time and time again so maybe it's possible that setting being unchecked was a carry over from previous versions of years past.

I set it to truncate after 6 months just to see what that gains me and will reduce from there if still needed.

I have a 300GB drive dedicated for catalogs and am ok with using a good amount of it to have further back restore data as long as it does not pose a issue with running out of space.

[Colin_Weaver]

If you want to remove the calogs you already have, then sort the catalogs\servername folder by creation date and then delete the .FH and .XML pairs that are older than the dates you are interested in keeping..

Don't delete any files other the .xml or .fh and don't delete the recent versions

Once done in a command prompt, change to the Backup Exec program files folder and run

catrebuildindex -r

The only problem with this is that you will need to keep manual records of off-site tapes and when they were used (if you keep older tapes) as you won't be able to look it up inside of Backup Exec once the catalogs and histories are gone.