Backup-To-Disk Configuration

[ebcs01]

Hello,

After a clean install of Sym BE 12.5 we're looking to configure a single scheduled nightly full backup.  We have created a media set which currently have been changing the settings for OPP and AP because we cannot get the backup to perform every night.  A B2D folder has been created which specifies pointing to a single external drive via USB for backup.  The drive remains connected 24/7 and does get backed up to.  The specific issue is that the backup appears to be appending to the external drive as the backup halts for the next nights backup saying the threshold had been reached that we specified on the B2D folder we created (although we did set a threshold of 90GB , the drive is a 500GB drive and the nights backup is only about 200GB).  Can someone please help on the proper configuration to get a single nightly full backup of our system onto the external disk drive?  We would like this drive to get overwritten each day so each nightly backup is the most recent on the external drive.

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

[Ben_L_]

Change your overwrite protection to around 20 hours and your append period to 0 hours.  Also set the job to overwrite only.  This will allow the backup to run nightly and overwrite the previous nights backup.

[ebcs01]

Hi Ben,

Thank you very much for your response.  I'll give that a shot and see how it runs, thanks for your advice its much appreicated.

[ebcs01]

Hi Again,

After changing my job settings to overwrite, selecting a 20 hour OPP and 0 hour AP on the media set - I am still unable to get Symantec to overwrite the external drive.  I verified yesterday that the drive was at 96GB free space before the backup job ran, and when it ran it used up the rest of the space up to the threshold limit we set of 90GB then the job stopped.  If these settings were accurate, shouldn't it have then continued to overwrite the data that existed on the external drive media anyway?  Is this issue occurring because we have a threshold set at all? Please help with clues so I may be able to get a successful full backup to occur nightly on the same media overwriting the previous nights backup.

Thanks for your assistance again!

[Hemant_Jain]

Go to tools-> options-> Media management. Make sure "overwrite recyclable media before scratch media..  " option is selected for Backup Exec to pick up an existing media whose Overwrite protection has expired and not a new media.

Please mark it a solution, if this is useful.
Thanks

[Ben_L_]

Also, look on the Media tab, then go to all media.  Does all the Backup to Disk files belong to the same media set or are they in different media sets? (except retired media, you can ignore those) If they are all in different groups, select all the media, right click and click Associtate with media set and select scratch media.  This will make all the Backup to Disk files overwritable.

Make sure that the job is using the media set configured with the 20 hour OPP.  This is under Device and Media in the job properties.

If you want to start fresh in the Backup to disk folder, you can highly all the media and select erase.  This will clear up the free space.  It just make take a bit to run.

[ebcs01]

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback.  I have made the changes to the job as BEsymc has suggested changing to overwrite recyclable media beofre scratch media.  I will see if that fixes the issue.  Ben, thanks again, all of the B2D files do belong to the same media set and are all in the one media set I created, no files exist in any of the other media sets. I verified the job is set to a 20 hour OPP.  If the solution above from BEsymc does not work, I will follow your next suggestion of erasing the B2D folder I created and start fresh again.

All the feedback is much appreciated and i'll let everyone know how progress is made later.

[ebcs01 · Accepted solution]

Hi Again,

BESymc, I would have loved to mark thats as the solution although that unfortunately did not resolve my problem.  I will say though I believe I may have stumbled upon the correct answer and again changed a setting and will monitor how it goes and report back.  In Options>Media Management - the Media Protection Level was set to Partial with prompt, I changed this to None and no prompt so media should now be overwritten.  If this does not work, Ben I will ask for your great guidance to change the B2D folder and try that route. 

Once more, all the help is very appreciated.

[teiva-boy]

FYI..  A single backup job in some cases depending on what you are backing up, goes against best practice for any backup product, including BE.

e.g.  You have an SBS server that runs Exchange, AD, and standard file/print.  You should have the following jobs made 
File server backup job with AOFO enabled
Exchange IS store job with GRT enabled, but AOFO disabled
AD job with GRT and AOFO disabled

In some cases, you would do a single job per server with enterprise environments having some 4000+ running and scheduled jobs!  This way if a job were to fail, it's only related to that one server, or if a maintenance window is to happen you only need to stop that one policy, and not remember to put that machine back into the group...  Easier management is the point here.

Obviously there is a recipe that each prefers, but following a best practice that has been done by hundreds of thousands of admins cant be too far from reality can it?

[ebcs01]

Hello All,

teiva-boy, great advice I admit.  I understand that probably is a best practice although this is what the company wants against all odds.

In any case, problem now resolved folks.  After I left my last comment, I changed the Media Protection Level - now the job overwrites all data on the drive regardless and I was able to perform a single nightly backup, overwriting the previous nights backup.  Job completed successfully.

Throughout this time I really appreciate all the help and input, thanks once again for the assistance. Take care!