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Backup Exec 2010 R3 recommended setup for NAS backup

spoekes
Level 4

Hello,

I am not able to set up a reliable backup with BE 2010 R3. I think i have some false assumptions about the system in general, so i am asking you for help:
What is the recommended setup for backup to a NAS?

What i am trying to achive (it should be simple):

  • BE should perform a daily backup.
  • If NAS space is running low BE should delete the oldest backup, but a minium of 8 backup sets should be preserved (there is enough place for 20 or more backup sets).

Problems i am facing:



Thanks for your help!
Thomas

11 REPLIES 11

CraigV
Moderator
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Hi,

 

Firstly if your NAS is capable of doing iSCSI (most of them are nowdays), turn it on, carve out iSCSI LUNs and then present to your media server. You're going to get around a lot of potential problems if you do it this way vs. trying to access a share on the network. Read my article on this below:

 

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/using-iscsi-backup-your-environment-nas-backup-exec

You need to set your low disk threshold on your B2D which will only stop your backups from running. This prevents your entire drive from being written too. That said, you need to make sure that your media set properties are correctly set, and choose the option to Overwrite...never append to B2Ds.

For your temporary files, you can open up your selection list and choose the option to exclude them.

Thanks!

spoekes
Level 4

Hi,
iSCSI is not available on the nas. Right now BE can only use 40% of the available space
(it dropped from over 50 % for unknown reasons)
Since BE can not detect the amount of free space on the nas:

  • Is there any way to manually set the amount of free space?
  • If not: how do reset the process so that the BE can make a better assumption of the free space?

Thanks for your help!

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
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Hi,

 

Nope there isn't. Not that I know of. In this case, BE should just use what it can, unless there is some sort of folder limit on the NAS itself.

Thanks!

pkh
Moderator
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Go to Tools ---> Options and set this

Give an example of the temporary files that you are talking about.

BE will NEVER use all the free space in a volume and then delete/overwrite the oldest backup set.  It will only use as much space as it is required to keep the number of backup sets required to satisfy your OPP.  Suppose your daily backups is 10GB and you specify an OPP of 3 days. at any one time on your disk, there will be a maximum of 4 backup sets and the maximum space consumed will be 40GB.  This is regardless of how big is your disk and what is the low disk space threshold.

You do not want to hit the low disk space threshold because when you do, your job will stop until you clear up sufficient disk space for the job to continue or you can cancel the job.

When the OPP for a backup set expires, BE will just re-use the .bkf file.  It will not delete the old .bkf and create new ones.

spoekes
Level 4

Thanks for your answer pkh,

  • the option you mentioned is already set.
  • I am talking about 2KByte temporary bkf files.
  • What you describe is not the behavior of BE in our Setup. This is whats happening (using your figures):
    On day 4 (30 GBytes in 3 backup sets exists on the NAS, still plenty of GBytes free) BE does not create a backup. The status in the scheduler says "Loading Media" and a lot of temporary files a written. If i am lucky, BE will continue backing up after 1 day when the OPP allows it to erase data from day 1. If not, the backup job stays with the "Loading Media" state. the OPP threshold for day 2,3 is reached and the backups from day 1,2,3 are gone.




 

pkh
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See Colin's answer below on how the 2kb .bkf files are handled

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/bk-exec-2010-r3-b-2-d-creates-20kb-media#comment-5834181

Are you on SP2 and the latest horfixes?

Have you tried using another volume for your backups?

spoekes
Level 4

We are using Backup Exec R3 with the latest SP and latests Hoftfixes.
Those 2KByte do not appear on normal operation. They only appear when the 
"Loading Media" case is happening.
No we didn't try another volume jet. But we
 throughly tested the nas for defects.

pkh
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Are you using GRT for your backups?

spoekes
Level 4

yes we use GRT for Sharepoint and Exchange

pkh
Moderator
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How big is your Sharepoint and Exchange backup?  Is there sufficient space on the NAS for an image of these resources?

Is your NAS in the SCL?  If not, have you used the B2DTest utility to test it.

B2Dtest.exe

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

I think this needs a formal support case for Symantec to actually use Webex to take a look at what is going on with your system.

A couple of things to bear on mind

BE 2010 R3 and earlier does not start ovewriting just becaue the disk reaches a low free space condition, it used media set control and reclaim or overwritre operations (depending on job config) as each backup job runs.

BE 2012 would manage this sluightly differently as DLM would look for reclaimable backup sets every 4 hours irrespective of any backup job running.

Also if a NAS disk does fill up, I do not think BE 20120 R3 will autodetect that you have freed up space after it reaches a low disk warning, I think you would have to clear the warning manually.