Deleting B2D folder doesn't clean the backups sets after catalog

[RobRodrigues]

I need a litle help over this suposed issue.

Backup exec 2012 SBE

I do all my backups to disk folders, first to a SAN disk where i have a folder for SQL,Exchange and Hyper-V backups. Then i duplicate all this backups to a NAS where i do have the same logical name folders to hold for at least 13 days all my backups.

My issue is that i'm having many problems on the duplicate jobs and i deleted the NAS folders and put online at the storage and did a inventory and catalog for all the folders i have at the NAS, and at BE 2012 i still have the information about all the old backup sets that i had there before is this normal.

[CraigV]

...unless you deleted the B2D from the NAS from within BE, and then made sure the files were deleted in Windows, you're going to have orphaned files.

If you don't need them, delete the B2Ds from within BE, and then delete from disk if anything else remains.

[RobRodrigues]

I'm getting severall errors at duplicating jobs so i'm trying to reset the whole thing.

I think that deleting the folder from windows and did a inventory and catalog it eliminate the backups sets but nothing happens. In be 2010 they appeared as offline and i was able to delete them, in be 2012 nothing happens.

[David_Palmersto]

In addition to the inventory and catalog, BE2012 maintains information Recovery Chain information in the BEDB which may be where BE is finding information to complain to you about. The only methods that I have found for properly maintaining the BEDB are through the BE GUI, BEMCLI, and by using the procedure to completely replace the entire BEDB with the empty template provided by Symantec, then rebuilding it from Inventory and Catalogs.

At my site we have run into a number of problems trying to reclaim space on a B2D storage device with BE2012 and have worked with multiple Symantec Tech Support people to get some of them resolved in SP1a and the hotfixes.

Our take on this process at this time is to use the "Storage, Storage Device, Backup Sets" view to verify the backup sets that we want to manually remove, then select and delete them from there.  This allows us to carefully choose the backup sets that WE KNOW are properly protected and can be deleted and removed.  If you select backup sets which are part of a recovery chain, this method will also notify you as such and allow you to continue deleting or cancel the deletion of a particular backup set to protect the recovery chain.

While there is currently more protection offered by this method of deleting than what you have described; we have still submitted an enhancement request to protect the entire recovery chain even with B2D and duplicate backups which should further enable us to be more confident about manually deleting backup sets while still maintaining a recoverable backup in the event of failures.

Please vote up the enhancement if you see value in it: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/ideas/be-2012-enhancement-duplicate-recovery-chain-option

[pkh · Accepted solution]

The proper way to delete a backup set/media is to delete them from BE first BEFORE physically deleting them using Windows Explorer.  When you are using Disk Storage, DLM applies and some backup sets are prevented from deletion because they are part of a backup chain.

[AmitD]

DLM is the new feature introduced in this BE release of Backup Exec2012. In DLM ,we have tried to simplify the DATALIFE CYCLE MANAGMENT .

Now , if you tried to delete a backup set from BE2012 ,which has dependent backup sets present. Then delete operation is not allowed.

If you delete a backup set from BE UI (storage tab) this is automatically delete the Data from PHYSICAL LOCATION ALSO (this is very unlike the previous BE versions)

In your case , where you have deleted the data from physical location first , and still you are seeing the enties in Storage tab. I will suggest you to delete the b2d folder from storage ,restart the services and create a new B2d

more links for your referance

1.https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/data-lifecycle-management-be-2012