Backup Exec 2012 - Backup job setup issues

[pinehome]

Hi, 

We are trying to setup a Disk Base Storage using Symantec Backup Exec 2012 on 2 USB hard disk drives,

One backup hard disk for all five working days of first week and second for all five days of the following week,

We want full backup job to run and overwrite every night but its not and keeps on filling the backup disk in three to four days and not overwriting it.

Are we missing any step? seems very straight forward to setup

Would appriciate if some please help to setup 

best regards

[CraigV]

BE 2012 should be overwriting those files (I believe the option to append to a B2D file was removed)...just make sure your Append/OPP settings on the media set in question are correct, otherwise the files are retained for longer than they should be.

Thanks!

[Colin_Weaver]

BE 2012 uses DLM to manage when to overwrite files on USB disks instead of the traditional media sets.

DLM does not do an overwrite during a job, but actually monitors for overwriteable (beyond retention date) backup sets and removes them via a background process that polls every 4 hours. As such the process is not an overwrite it is known as a reclaim. We have a defect where if a USB disk is detached and BE decides to reclaim the backup set on that detached disk then it won't reclaim that backup set when the disk is re-attached. This causes USB disks to run out of space. http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH196201

In addition to the above defect, DLM also has a number of inbuilt rules, for instance you cannot reclaim the very latest backup set for a given resource even if it is beyind the retention period. You also cannot reclaim and backup set that has an incremental or differential set based on it that can't be reclaimed.

See this blog for more info on DLM 

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/data-lifecycle-management-be-2012

[pinehome]

Hi,

Thanks for your help so far,

So is that means there is no straight forward way to configure backup on USB based HDs and schedule them to run automatically? Seems like manual changes required constantly on all three workarounds mentioned in the link above

Should we better of using NAS instead for the scheduled backup?

regards

[CraigV]

Not sure I follow...you want to retain 5 days backup per USB drive, but want it to overwrite every night? This leaves you with only the previous night's backups if you do it explicitly this way.

USB-based HDDs are supported as a B2D location, as is a NAS. The NAS works well especially if you can enable iSCSI and present these LUNs to your backup server.

Thanks!