Backup to Disk Files very small

[Paul_Rosenberg]

Hi all,

I am setting up a rotation that runs an incremental every six hours for the course of 60 days at which point a new full backup runs and the process restarts itself. We backup anything from 50MB to 5GB during a 24 hour period.

Note -- this is backup to disk folders only, not to tape at all.

I have setup my backup set to be a 200GB file containing at most 100 backup sets.

However, I am getting 50MB to 5GB out of each Backup to Disk file and only a few appended backup sets before it creates a new file.

My goal is to try to get at least 30 sets per append which still only range from 50MB to 5GB in size over the course of the day.

Am I missing something here?

This is backup exec version 10.0 revision 5484

Here is the summary of my backup to disk folders:

Maximum size for Backup-to-Disk files: 204800 MB
Maximum number of backup sets per Backup-to-Disk file: 3
Disk space reserve: 0 MB
Auto detect: Enabled
Concurrent operations allowed: 1

Thanks for helping me out!

[Paul_Rosenberg]

One more thing to add.

Our overwrite protection is set to 60 days, and the append is set to 59 days to cover our rotation sequence.

Therefore, OWP is not the problem.

[ray_littlefie1]

You indicated the media sets for the jobs are set correctly, but is the job configured to append to those media sets?

to job setup and verify the jobs are set to 'Append to media, overwrite if no appendable media is available.

(overwrite column indicates "No")

[Ken_Putnam]

Just a comment about your setup

You do realize that should you ever need to completely rebuild a protected machine, you'll have to restore the last full and EVERY subsequent incremental?

[Shilpa_pawar_2]

Hi,

Which option have you selected in backup job properties> Device and Media> "append to media.." or "overwrite media"?

You may like to refer to the following technote for more information:


http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/237374.htm



http://support.veritas.com/docs/192265


Additional Information :
For information on the recent VERITAS Backup Exec security vulnerabilities, including links to the downloads for the necessary hotfixes, please refer to the following document:
Patch summary for Security Advisories VX05-001, VX05-002, VX05-003, VX05-005, VX05-006, VX05-007

http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/277429.htm



NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked "assumed answered" and would be moved to "answered questions" pool.

[Paul_Rosenberg]

I shall try to clarify.

The rotation is actually 30 days between full backups and yes, we are aware of the fact that we would have to select every single incremental after the last full backup to do a full restore of data. We have a very strict data retention policy which requires projects to be cleared off the server after 30 days anyway. In the two years we've run this, we've never had to restore off an incremental, because we ran backups every friday. HOwever, we are changing the rotation schedule to lower our window of failure. Since these are backup files, and this is a high end SAN connected to the box, restores (which in testing) restored very quickly, even the full and subsequent incrementals Servers are fully redundant. OS is only true source of failure (even redundant raid controllers)

Anyway to answer all the questions. Yes, the job is setup to append the job, overwrite if no appendable media is available. This is the correct setting, because after the 30 days has expired and the next full backup has run, I would like it to overwrite the incremental files as opposed to creating new ones every time like it is doing right now.

Does this help a little.. Thanks!

[ray_littlefie1]

Hmmm... Sounds like it should work then.
I'll make one last comment- I had a slightly similar problem once; Multiple B2D files indicating they where overwriteable & appendable, but Backup Exec would never use them. I tried erasing them and making them Scratch, but they just sat there day after day. I had changed (increased) the Maximum Size of Backup File parameter, and apparently that made the earlier (smaller) files useless to use. There where no error messages, and like in your situation all indications where that it should work. I deleted the B2D folder and started again, and it has worked very well since. Perhaps you could try creating another folder and try again?

[Ashutosh_Tamhan]

First recommendation is update to build 5520.
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/277181.htm

We suggest you to try the following settings.
- no of bkupsets=10
- no of concurrent jobs=4


Regards,
Ashutosh

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to answered questions pool.