Backups Always Stuck on 1,024 Bytes....

[systematic92]

Morning Community,

Our company is using BackupExec 2010 R2 (Media Server/Administration Console version 13.0 4164 x64) and we are noticing fluctuating results with our backup to tape jobs. Some days all incremental jobs will complete, other days 1 job may hang at 1.024 bytes, another day both jobs (as we have two tape drives) remain stuck at 1,024 bytes. When they become stuck, they do one of two things - 1) Stay stuck (the longest I've left it is 6 hours to no avail) or 2) Randomly fire up and continue working as normal (They may start 1 hour after this state or 10 hours).

Ultimately, this is not acceptable since we have fairly small jobs running into the day and/or being forced to cancel, after which, they can resort back to their 1,024 byte state.  I have attached a screenshot to this post fresh from a few minutes ago.

Bit more info - we are using a Windows Server 2003 SP2 machine, we are predominantly backing up data from a NetApp SAN. If there is anything else you guys require, please let me know but I would be grateful for any feedback if you have experienced and/or resolved this in your working environment?

Many thanks

[Riyaj_S]

Is 'Check Point restart' enabled on the Backp Job? Is this job setup to use modified time or archive bit ? Are you backing up to a Disk Storage or a Tape device?

[Colin_Weaver]

Have you considered updating to BE 2010 R3 (uses same licenses as R2) as we may have updates etc that change what you are seeing (we stopped updating R2 some time ago)

Also: Not that this comment is necessarily part of the problem - but in your picture your jobs seem to start with the word CIFS and then they have the word Incremental at the end. Incrementals backups from share level sources are not supported as the Archive Bit cannot be correctly updated and the time based methods require a remote agent on the system owning the data.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH68920

If you really need to do incrementals of data owned on NetApp device then either use the NDMP Option and the level based backup strategies, or present the storage as an iSCSI LUN to a Windows server and use RAWS on the Windows server.

[systematic92]

Hi Colin, 

Thank you for your feedback. As mentioned above, we have 3 policies that link to either a Daily, Weekly and Monthly job. In the policy template, I believe we are using the NDMP option. I have attached another screenshot for the settings/template associate with a Daily Incremental job.

Pic1 = the initial policy settings dialog

Pic2 = the NDMP option selected for the policy controling the Daily Incremental jobs

Thank you

[systematic92]

1. Backing up to a HP Tape device that has 2 drives

2. Backup Method - Incremenatal: Using archive bit (reset archive bit)

3. Checkpoint Restart = I believe this is a cluster setting option, which does not apply to us

[pkh]

Check point restart is only for BE 2012.  The user is using BE 2010 R2.

[Colin_Weaver]

OK - that does mean my extra comment does not apply to your 1024 byte problem.

FYI - a Level 1 Incremental against NDMP option on a NetApp is equivalent to a Differential in terms of a standard Windows backup.