Need to migrate bkf files from USB drive to BE2010R3

[WMTR_Admin]

I have BKF files that were created at a remote location using BE2010 at that location to a Backup folder on an external USB HDD. I need to pull several of these files into my local BE2010R3 system. Since the files were created using seperate install of BE there are duplicate file names. What procedure should I follow to to bring these files into my local system.

[CraigV]

Hi,

You'd connect the exteranl HDD to the media server. Create a B2D folder and point it to the location on the external drive, and then catalog it.

Once the catalog job completes, this would add all the details to your media server's catalogs, and you'd be able to restore data from it.

Thanks!

[Colin_Weaver]

Because you have duplicate names of the BKF files you will have to start with Empty Dabase and catalogs folders before adding the files into a B2D folder and running Inventory and catalog jobs. In effect you can do a migration but cannot safely do a merge.

As such process would be.

1) Take copies of your current BKF folders, catalogs and the bedb

2) Load an empty bedb

3) Add the USB content to a B2D location

4) Run Inventory and catalogh jobs

5) Do your restore

6) Then put back all your old bedb, catalogs and BEDB data (from step 1)

7) Repeat this process whenever you need to do a restore of data from the other servers backup sets.

You are much better off keeping separate media server (physical or virtual) just to manage this media but stop using this server for backups.

[WMTR_Admin]

Colin, am I understanding this correctly?

So there is no way to import any B2D files that may have been created using a different BE2010 instance and have have the existing system recognize them without maintaing a completely seperate media server?  I don't want\need to perform a restore right now. All I need to do is save two or three bkf's for possible future restore and flush the rest. There is over a TB of space to be recovered......

Plan B - What about moving\copying the files I'm concerned about to a different B2D folder and associating them with a different media set using the original BE2010?

[Colin_Weaver]

If you do not have duplicate BKF and IMG names then you can just do what Craig mentioned. However the duplicate names means you will have problems even if the B2d folder is a different folder.

To help you understand you should perhaps review this

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH176061

There is perhaps one get out.

If you only have BKF files and no IMG folders on the USB disk, and the BKF files were separate jobs, not a single job that spanned from one BKF to another then you can rename the bkf files and then catalog and inventory them into the same server. However this would be a rare situation as most jobs would span BKF files.

[Colin_Weaver]

Just discussed this with a colleague

If you have tape, you could use an empty database and catalogs etc (as mentioned earlier) to access the BKF files to run Catalog and Inventory Jobs, then run Duplicate backup jobs to tape (making sure the tape names/labels are unqiue)

Then put back your current database and catalogs etc and then catalog and inventory the tape and duplicate the tape setback to new BKF files - bit clunky but might help.

[WMTR_Admin]

Sorry, don't have tape Backup as an option. There are no IMG files and the actual jobs look to be one file per backup job.

As a minimum I need to get a couple files off of the USB drive but still within the realm of the BE server that created them. I'm looking at wanting one data file backup and one SQL backup (most likely with a sepeate log file backup) that are 7 months old. Ideally, I would like them to be moved to my location but I'm not really wanting to jump through all the hoops to do it.

[WMTR_Admin]

Craig,

I do have the ability to reconnect the USB drive back up to the original (remote) Backup Server and I will not have duplicate names as this is the server that created the files.

The device was originally connected as a removable B2D drive. All media was set to keep indefinitely and it looks like the plan was to alternate two USB drives on a monthly basis and either move the contents of the off site drive to a remote file share or delete them prior to putting the drive back in service, As I stated before, I want to pull at most four backups off of this devivce to retain them for a while. Once the four backups have been moved\copied elsewhere the plan is to recover the drive space and put this device back into service.The device is now full having ~5mb free so there is really nothing more I can do with this device until I get this done.

[WMTR_Admin]

Connected the USB drive back up to the original location and restored SQL db under another name to the original SQL db location. I am re-evaluating the backup requirements and procedures for this location, and presently I am adding local drive space to accomodate a normal backup routine. Just need to determine what I will be doing for the off-site archive and DR type backups.

Thanks for the help.