Best Practice for Backup Exec 2010 w/ 2 External Hard drives

[kfenech]

Hi,

I have been using Symantec Backup Exec for quite some time and im very happy with this solution.  Throughtime i have been trying to find the perfect solution for low budget companies that can only afford the software and some external hard drives for backup.

In most companies, the scenario would look like this:

Backup Exec 2010 R1-3.

2 x External Hard drives.

I would like to set up a system where the client changes hard drive everyday but backup is done irelavantly on which disk is plugged in.  The hard drives would be labelled HD1 and HD2 for inventory purposes.  I would also like that the hard drives have more than one copy of backups so it would give the facility to restore data which is more than 2 days old.

This is what I set up :

Media: Overwrite 1 hour / Append 1hr

DeviceName: Backup to disk 1 and 2. max size for b2d is 4gb, max number of backup sets per backup to disk file =100.

Job Details:  Backup on All Devices, Overwrite media when job begins.  I also set up an inventory of the B2D before everyjob.

What i am noticing is that there is only 1 backup set available on each b2d when i try to restore, whilst i would like to have more than 1 set and just overwrite automatically old sets when drive is nearly full.  I also noticed that if one purchases 2 identical disks, Symantec does not recognise that these are 2 different drives. is there a workaround for the 2 identical disks problem as like this the inventory is useless.

Any other suggestions on this setup is more than welcome.

thanks in advance.

[Striker_303]

Backup-to-Disk Best Practices

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH164267

Best practices for Backup Exec 2010 media management

http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO21797

[Colin_Weaver]

First of all to configure the USB disk themselves

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO55855

Make sure you read the linked document at the bottom regarding a servcie start problem.

 With regards the retaining data - we don't have a way to only overwrite when a device is near to full. You have to choose the retention period and base it on that. (EDIT: OK after reading Ken's later answer I might be wrong about being able to overwrite only when a disk is near full, however you now need to read the even later answer by pkh)

Depending on other settings on the system, Setting an OPP of only 1 Hour will amost cetainly only keep one copy as when you reconnect the disk to the server after a day, the media will be overwritable so it will overwrite it instead of using a new one.

[Ken_Putnam]

From Tools\options\Media Management make select the option to "Use scratch media before overwritealbe media in the target media set"

This will create new BKF files\IMG folders until the disk is full, and then start overwriting/re-using old ones

Also, if you are not there already, strongly suggest that you take the free upgrade to 2010 R3.  R2 greatly enhanced the handling of external hard drives

[pkh]

From Tools\options\Media Management make select the option to "Use scratch media before overwritealbe media in the target media set"

DO NOT select this option.  If you do, BE will keep creating new .bkf/.img until the disk is full and then your job will fail due to a lack of space.  This is in spite of having recyclable media on the disk.

You should always select the other option, i.e. "Use recycleable media in the target media set before scratch media".  This way if you have set up your OPP correctly, it will re-use the overwriteable .bkf files instead of creating new ones.

The only way to maximise the usage of your disk to to play around with the OPP.  For example, you have a 1TB disk and your backups are 150GB, then you can set your OPP in such a way that you have 6 copies of backup on your disk.  If you have a daily job, then set the OPP to 5 days and you would have 5 copies of backup on your disk.

You don't have to run an inventory job on your disk if you are using at least BE 2010 R2.  See my article below

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/how-rotate-external-harddisks