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Backup Exec 2012 Deduplication Storage space problem

arielc
Level 4

I've been testing backup exec 2012 for a week now and noticed that when my deduplication storage is nearly full and I've tried to delete some of the backup sets, the storage space doesn't seem to increase unlike in a normal disk storage. Do I need to do something else to maintain my deduplication storage?

6 REPLIES 6

ZeRoC00L
Level 6
Partner Accredited

arielc
Level 4

Yes, I've checked that already. It works but I was hoping that they've improved managing deduplication storage in BE 2012.

I guess I was wrong.

 

teiva-boy
Level 6

Dedupe is not B2D.  If it were, then you would have HUGE performance issues.  You would have a 99% fragmented volume by day 3 of your backups.  

BE actually does a great job of preallocating the space as needed and writes a contiguous file, preventing file fragmentation.  Called a container file.  You see it as AIT media in BackupExec.

Then you have to understand how deduplication works, and how files you are backing up are broken into segments.  Those segments are stored in the container files.

A single segment could represent bits of data across many files you've backed up.  Thus a segment could be referenced multiple times.  So even if you delete backup sets, the segments are probably still referenced in other files, as well as the container files need to stay at their fixed size to keep performance working well.

The garbage collection process will free up space only by marking bits within the segment files that they can be overwritten.  It doesn't actually free up space that has been allocated. 

 

At the end of the day, there is a balancing act that Symantec had to do, and it was the better choice IMO.  If they did what you would want, the performance would suffer.  Note, many dedupe vendors work the same way, and process data the same way or very similar.  So they are not alone here.

arielc
Level 4

Thank you for a good explanation. What I really mean is, I was hoping that since the new UI is user friendly, why not make managing deduplication storage user friendly too. If a new user of backup exec uses the dedup storage for the first time, he'll be surprised and probably frustrated if the storage got full. Don't get me wrong as I have no problem in going in to the command line to do the work. But in smaller companies like us which have limited IT personnel's, a more user friendly UI is really a big help.

Anyway, it's probably just a wish list on my mind. smiley

RyanSinclair
Not applicable
Employee Accredited
I work for Symantec and am currently at a conference where quite a few engineers are present. The previous post is helpful, but I understand where you're coming from when talking about the UI. It is certainly a big change from previous versions. Our team takes wish lists very seriously :) Cheers, Ryan

arielc
Level 4

Thanks Ryan. Good to hear that Symantec is listening to its users. :)