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NDMP backup of a volume that contains NTFS compression

YonatanC
Level 5

Hi,

I'm using NetApp and I have a 550GB volume containing a 500GB LUN which is mapped as a Raw Disk to a Windows 2008 server as drive E:.

The LUN has abour 10GB free space.

On that Drive E:, I have a folder which contains all the data and I want to apply Windows NTFS Compression (right click > properties > advanced > compress) on it.

My question is, what would be the size of the backup?

Let's say the compression ratio will be 2:1, will the backup size by 250GB, or does NDMP ignores the NTFS compression and will backup 500GB?

What if I'll use ZIP instead of NTFS compression? That way I will literally free half the space on Drive E:. Will it affect the NDMP backup?

 

Also, is there any possible way to backup a LUN which contains VMware Datastores or Raw Disks and be able to restore specific machines/items from it?

Thanks.

2 REPLIES 2

Sush---
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Hello YonatanC,

    Applying Windows NTFS Compression will surely affect the backups and restore even if its applied to LUN. 

Please refer to the following technote to know more about the same:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH34346 : How hard disk compression can affect backup and restore jobs on a Windows (NTFS) File System Partition

 

Regards,

-Sush...

YonatanC
Level 5

Hi Sush,

The technote doesn't address NDMP backups.

NDMP is a block level backup, I don't think it's aware of the operating system that's on the LUN or to any NTFS compression. This is why I'm not sure what will be the size of the backup - equal to the uncompressed files size or to the compressed files size.

Also, since it's a block level backup, I'm not sure the NTFS compression it'll affect the backup performance.

Correct me if I'm wrong...