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Disk to Disk Exchange backup is failing - Backup Exec 2010

buck614
Level 4

I have recently installed Backup Exec 2010 on a standalone 2003 X64 Server box.. I have an Exchange agent activated to backup my exchange server. I do not have my tape library yet so for the moment I am looking to back up my exchange server to my Backup Exec Server's local drive. This is just temporary.

To accomplish this I created a Backup-to-disk item on the devices tab that points to a local folder. It is set for a maximum size of 500Gb. It is enabled and has a low disk threshold of 50GB set.

The drive in questiuon is the local drive on the Backup Exec computer. It is 1TB is sizw with 917GB free.

The backup job is set up to run a full backup, 'append to media, overwrite if no appendable media is available', I also made a custom media set which is set to Overwrite protection period of 1 hour, and the appendable period is set to 'Infinite - Allow Append'.



My first run earlier in the week went great with no errors. I then ran another full backup and it backed up about 336GB of data but failed with the following error message:

The job failed with the following error: Using the job settings, Backup Exec attempted to back up the passive copy of the Exchange database. However, the passive copy was not available after the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) snapshot was performed. Try to run the job again.

Just a thought but ...

I have a space limit of 500GB set on the destination folder for the backup. It seems like the size was exceeded on the 2nd full backup but it was unable to delete the previous backup to make room for the new one. As I said the full backup is about 380GB.

Any ideas?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

buck614
Level 4
I think it is fixed now. I called Symantec Support and we were able to walk through some changes and I had a sucsessfull full backup last night.

My VSS writers were not showing online on my exchange box. I rebooted the exchange server and they started showing online properly. We also downloaded SP1 for Backup Exec 2010. That in turn updated the remote agent on the Exchange box.

We also determined that third storage group was set up for LCR replication. Because of that, we set bot the incremental and full backups to backup from the active copy only.

We set the maximum size for backup to disk files to 10Gb.

We also set the selection list to only backup System State, Shadow Copy Components, and the Microsoft Information Store. I am going to create a new selection list and policy to backup everything else on the exchange server. Apparently it is best to seperate those backups.

I am not using the AOFO option at all because it is not needed on a Windows 2003 server box apparently.

As I said, the full backup ran last night with no issues. I believe the main remaining issue was the VSS writers. I also needed to set it to "backup from the active copy only".

Thanks for everyone's help.

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59 REPLIES 59

buck614
Level 4
Can't anyone help me with this?

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited
Hi Buck,

Have you looked at changing the append period to something like an hour as well?

Lou_Di_Tommaso
Level 3
Partner Accredited
Hi Buck,

The problem is that you have something other than "1" in the "Maximum number of backup sets per backup-to-disk file" option on the General tab of the Backup-To-Disk folder.  For instance, let's say this number is set to 10.  What you are saying here is that the file is allowed to grow to 500 GB and the backup can append 9 more times to the file. 

Changing the setting to "1" will allow the backup to overwrite the file before trying to use avaialble free space on the drive.

Lou

buck614
Level 4

But I am doing full backups as well as full backups. I would want there to be at least six incrementals and one full in there at any given time.

Lou_Di_Tommaso
Level 3
Partner Accredited
That's fine.  What I am saying is that the initial file that is created will only have 1 backup job result in it.  Instead of tacking on more it will overwrite it and therefore leave you enough space to perform your Incrementals/Differentials.  The Incrementa/Differential job will create their own files.  I am not saying that you won't have multiple files.

Hopefully I understood what you are trying to accomplish.

Lou

buck614
Level 4

So if I set it to 1 ... I can have multiple incrementals and a 2 full backups still? All that should fit without exceeding the quota. I want TWO full backups at all times.

Lou_Di_Tommaso
Level 3
Partner Accredited
In order to have multiple backups you will have to set your retension period correctly.  I you want to have 2 Full Backups at all times, set your retension period to anywhere from 7 to 13 days.  If you set it for less, it may get overwritten to soon, if you set it to 2 weeks, you'll probably retain 3 copies.

How large are you're full backups?  380GB as stated above?  Then you won't have the space because you set your folder not to exceed 500 GB and you want 2 copies.  If my math is correct, 2 copies = 760 GB.

buck614
Level 4

Retention period? Where is that ... in the policy?

I upped my storage limit to 800GB.

Lou_Di_Tommaso
Level 3
Partner Accredited
Retention is configured on the media you created.  It setting is called "Overwrite Protection Period."  Since you are doing Full and Incremental backups, you should create two media sets "Full" and "Incremental." Set the Full media to anywhere between 7 and 13 days and the Incremental to 6 if you want to retain backups from Monday through Thursday.  Setting it to 6 will garantee that Mondays job will not be overwritten until the next Monday's job.  By the way, 800 GB will cover the 2 full backups but will it be enough to also include the incrementals?

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified
The "Maximum number of backup sets per backup-to-disk file" is not the number of times that a file can be appended to.  A backup set is the backup of a resource, like a drive or database.  For example, if this number is set to 1 and you back up the C: and D: drive and a SQL database, 3 .bkf files would be need to store the backup.  If you set this number to 3 or more, then all 3 can go into one .bkf file.

Generally it is not a good ides to specify Append for B2D jobs.  The overwrite protection is reset when the file is used.  For example, your job writes to the BKF1 and your OPP is set such that the next time the job run, BKF1 will be overwriteable.  If your job is set to append, during the second run, it will first write to BKF1 which may have only a little space left.  BKF1 will be write-protected after this.  If the job fills up BKF2, it will not be able to overwrite BKF1.  It will need to create BKF3.   If your job is set to overwrite, then it will overwrite BKF1 and use its full capacity before it needs to create BKF2.

Also, note that when BE append.  It will only append to the first file or tape.  If it needs a second file or tape, it must be overwriteable, thus an infinite OPP should should only be used with care.

buck614
Level 4

Thank you ...

So when you say 'Generally it is not a good ides to specify Append for B2D jobs', are you referring to full backups, incremental backups, or both?


To make this easier ... what do you recommend my settings be then for the full backup, the incremental backup, and maximum number of backup sets per backup-to-disk file?

I have a quota on my disk location that will account for two full backups and I want incrementals. Each full runs every Monday.
Thanks for your help.


buck614
Level 4

Got ya. 800 GB should be fine.

buck614
Level 4

I am still looking for someone to spell out what my append time and my backup sets should be set to so that I can get two full backups in there with 6 days of incrementals. That would be great.

I have a new problem, I have implemented Incremental backups going to the same data destination. They run daily Tues through Sun. The full backup runs on Mon.

My first incremental on Tuesday ran fine but from last Wednesday through Sunday, each incremental backup failed with the following error:

Incremental -- The job failed with the following error: A failure occurred querying the Writer status.

The full ran yesterday and had no error. Doesn't sound like it really had a writer status error to me. Can anyone help me with this?

buck614
Level 4
Can anyone help me with his.

Ken_Putnam
Level 6

I have a space limit of 500GB set on the destination folder for the backup. It seems like the size was exceeded on the 2nd full backup but it was unable to delete the previous backup to make room for the new one. As I said the full backup is about 380GB.

Do you mean MAX BKF SIZE is set to 500GB?   I would set this back to the default.  I also agree that ALL B2D should be OVERWRITE not APPEND.  \
Max Sets per file can be set to 10 or so, so that you do not waste too much space at the end fo the last BKF file of each job

buck614
Level 4
I am not sure what you mean when you say MAX BKF SIZE. I have my 'Maximum size for backup-to-disk files' set to 800GB. Right now I have 2 full backups in there.

If I set the full backup job to overwrite, can I keep more than one backup? I want to keep 2 full backups.

When you say overwrite only, do you mean for incrementals too? Wouldn't that mean I only have 1 incremental backup?

buck614
Level 4

Just so you know, my full backups appear to be working fine because I have had two sucessive ones in a row.

Ken_Putnam
Level 6
I am not sure what you mean when you say MAX BKF SIZE. I have my 'Maximum size for backup-to-disk files' set to 800GB. Right now I have 2 full backups in there.

That is the option I was talking about.   

If I set the full backup job to overwrite, can I keep more than one backup? I want to keep 2 full backups.

If you set the OPP for the media set to however long you want to retain data, then, yes you can keep the output from multiple jobs available.

When you say overwrite only, do you mean for incrementals too? Wouldn't that mean I only have 1 incremental backup?

Not if you set the OPP of the INCR media set properly.  Say you want to keep 4 days of INCR and 3 sets of FULL.  Set the INCR media set OPP to 3 days and the FULL media set OPP to 20 days



buck614
Level 4
Gotcha. So, I make 2 media sets.

The full media set will be :
Overwrite Protection period: 16 Days (will cover at least 2 full backups)
Appendable Period: infinite allow append

The incremental media set will be:
Overwrite Protection period: 8 Days (will cover at least 6 days of incrementals)
Appendable Period: infinite allow append

For both jobs, I set the "When job begins" setting to "overwrite" in the properties of the policy. Even though it is set to overwrite, I will get two full backups because of my media set overwrite period?

Also, I have my backup-to-disk set up with a maximum size of 800GB, maximum number of backup sets to 20, with a 50GB low disk space threshold. Does that sound good?

Thanks for your help!