Backup Exec select a Disk pool without enough space for backup

[Ivan_2]

Dear all,

We are using Backup Exec 2010 R2 with most update patch.

We use the 4 drive (D, E, F, H Drive) to form a disk pool for Weekly Backup.

Recently, during backup our file server (About 800G, VMware VM), we found that Backup Exec always choose a backup disk location without enough space.

Even there is a disk with enough space, Backup Exec not using it.

The result is Backup Exec ask for Loading Media.

We need cancel the job, remove all the file server snapshot and we do the backup.

Even so, there may have chance the Backup Exec use s drive without enough disk space.

Please help.

Ivan

[pkh · Accepted solution]

When you target a device pool, BE will use the first available device in the pool, regardless of the amount of free space on it.  If the device does not have sufficient space, you can vary it offline so that it would not be used during the backup.

[teiva-boy]

Netbackup offers this functionality, backupexec does not. You could always concatenate your volumes depending on what version of windows you are on...

[Ivan_2]

Does BE 2012 have this function?

[pkh]

No.  When a backup job starts, BE does not know the final size of the backup and hence it cannot "find" a storage which will fit the storage.  This is so for all version of BE and for all media.

In BE 2010, there is a disk spanning feature but it is only applicable for non-GRT backups which uses .bkf files.  For GRT backups, it uses .img files which must be allocated in its entirety.