cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Differential backup keeps crowing, also after a full backup

HerbertK
Level 4

I have created a Job that exist out a Full backup (of about 1,5 TB running on Friday evening) and a belonging differential backup.

BackupJob2.jpg

My problem is that I expected that only during the week the differences between de diffferential backups would slightly increase, but after a full backup this differential backup should be smaller again.

I have run this contruction now for about 3 weeks and every weekday the differential is getting bigger!  (someting about 6 GB) So also after running a full backup, the differential backup of monday evening/night is larger than the one that ran on the night from Thursday onto Friday the week before.

BackupLog.jpg

Can somebody make a suggestion what I'm doing wrong?

11 REPLIES 11

lmosla
Level 6

Run Live updates and make sure the Media Server is full patched and then push out the remote agent to any remote servers.  In your Exchange job disable AOFO and that the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Server Snapshot Provider is selected with system: use Microsoft software volume shadow copy provider

 

HerbertK
Level 4

Which live updates are you refering to (update to the latest version of BE 2012)?

I do not use any remote agent.

What use does it have to select the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy.. if I have to disable the AOFO. The settings below that tickbox named "Use snaphost technology" dont care anymore if I disable that?

Can you explain a bit more why this would solve this issue? Is there some related bug that was solved in one of the latest version?

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

If you are not on SP4 and the latest hotfixes, you should run LiveUpdate a couple of times to upgrade to these.  This is in case, your problem is fixed in one of these updates.

You enable AOF so that you can backup files which are opened.  If you do not enable AOF, then opened files would be skipped and your backup would not be complete.

Do you have any AV scan running on your server?  If so, some AV scan can affect the file in such a way that they are deemed to be modified and thus need to be backed up.  You should disable any AV scan and see whether you get the result that you expect.

You might want to use CatTools do dump out the catalog of the backups and take a look at the files which are backed up to see whether this is expected or unexpected.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH198906

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

And ideally you should be splitting off your backups jobs as well. Preferably, one job for C:\, System State, the second one for SQL DBs & the third one for Exchange.

HerbertK
Level 4

I have run the life update twice and had to reboot the server also twice. Didnt change any other thing than this. First see what the differentials backup of tonight will do.

I understand one big backup is not the best pratice, but other than a possible bug in the BE12 software I had no real clear explanation why my differential backups keeps growing..

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified
Have you examined the files backed up by the differential backup?

HerbertK
Level 4

Not yet, i have a very full agenda and this will probably have to wait until half October, but the fixes did at least the trick that for the first time the differential backup is a bit smaller (about 8 GB) than the day before!

When I have examined the backed up files of the differential I will let you know.

HerbertK
Level 4

Hi VJware,

Sorry for the delay in answering, have a lot of work going on (and was away 2 weeks: 1 week training and 1 week holiday).

Anyway, I understand that is is better to create several jobs in stead of 1 large job. Doing so I can choose to only do a Fullbackup of the C: drive in stead of making differental jobs during the week as well?

What is the general ID behind creating splitting the jobs and creating also separate Jobs for SQL db's and Exchange?

PS: my differential backups still grow, once started at around 100GB per day, last night they where about 316GB!

HerbertK
Level 4

Hi PKH,

Finally put some time in running the CatTools tool as suggested.

Followed the link, and copied the CatTools into the Backup Exec directory on our SBS2011 server.

Openened a CMD box (as administrator) and ran the command to convert a recent *fh file but got stuck with an "Application Error" as shown.

Error_CatTools.jpg

What do I do wrong?

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified

You did not put your output in quotes and I cannot see whether you closed the FN parameter with a quote.

HerbertK
Level 4

Have tried another time, taking care and looking specialy at the closing quotes and places output path in quotes also.

Error_CatTools_3.jpg

But still no succes... any ideas?

PS open de image separately, because the webpage doesnt show it completely.. right part of screen (scrollbar) is not visible..