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No easy way of removing backup sets in BE2014

PrisonerZero
Level 3

Hello

Upgraded from Be2012 to Be2014, and absolutely hate there is no way of manually deleting backup sets.

The backup strategy is backup to disk (1 week retention) and immedietly duplicate to tape (4 week retention). The problem I seem to have, is that the expired disk based backup chain thinks the duplicated non expired tape chain is a dependancy, and will not remove itself during the storage grooming process. So the HDD storage is filling up with expired backup chains, that can't be deleted.

I would easily remove them manually if I could, but the that functionality has been removed.

I will try recreating all the jobs, but its a huge nuisance. Has anyone had the same problem?

 

49 REPLIES 49

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

From the Backup & Restore tab and then choosing particular server or from the Storage tab, choose the option "Backup Sets" from the left pane.

Right-click a single or multiple backup sets and you would have the option "Expire" which would expire backup sets immediately.

Tauqeer
Level 3

I do this. and no result.
how long expired backup sets will be remove?
 

i do:

"To manually delete a backup set in 2014, go to Backup Exec button > Configuration and Settings > Backup Exec Settings > Storage and enable the,'Allow Backup Exec to delete all expired backup sets,' option. Then proceed to Expire (delete) the selected backup sets."

PrisonerZero
Level 3

Hi

Let me rephrase this.

There is a chain of backups (Full + incrementals) on HDD based storage, which were all replicated to tape. So the HDD ones have all expired already, but the duplicates on tape have not expired, as they have a different retention.

If I right click on the Full backup on the HDD & "Show Dependant Backup Sets" it lists all the expired ones on disk BUT it also lists all the ones on tape as dependants. Because there are dependants, it will not get deleted, and there is no way to manually choose & delete.

 

The only thing to do is to expire the tape backup sets.

 

Expiry.png

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

Please log a formal support case for this so that we can investigate more thoroughly

 

 

PrisonerZero
Level 3

I had a talk to a Symantec support engineer while on a different case, and he suggested Hotfix 218257.

 

Hasn't fixed the issue as of yet.

PrisonerZero
Level 3

Ive raised a case, and they suggested Hotifx 217591. Unfortunetly this did not fix this problem either. HDD is filling up fast with expired backups which do not go away.

PrisonerZero
Level 3

I have just gotten off the phone to Symantec Support. He could not help me with this, and informed me

 

  • The program was designed this way, that backup chains duplicated to tape, still need the original full disk backup.
  • To delete backup set files manually through explorer.

 

Its not an option to go hunting around for expired backup sets, I don't have the time and its not something I should have to do.

 

This makes the program fundumentally broken.

 

ArtyVark
Level 3

Dont want to hijack this thread but I have a similiar problem. I have just upgraded from Backup Exec 2010 to 2014 and I have a number of backups that have expired but are not being re-used/removed like previous. 

There is no delete button either. It seems to have been replaced by an Expired button but this does do anything as the sets are already expired. I just want to delete them.

The other thing I dont like is with 2010 you could actually see the backups that had expired being re-used but on 2014 you dont seem to see this.

 

BE2014Expired.jpg

ArtyVark
Level 3

So were they saying to delete using explorer then do an inventory to update BE 2014 ?

 

Also where did you get Hotfix 217591 from ?

 

PrisonerZero
Level 3

The Symantec Rep. gave me the link.

ArtyVark
Level 3

Could you let me have the link too please ?

jerrys79
Level 4

I was just about to upgrade my main site to BE2014 when I came across this thread.  I have upgraded 3 other sites that only use tape backups and have had great success and really love the product.  My main site has the same backup strategy as yours with the exception that our retention time on tape is 3 weeks instead of 4.  I thought DLM was supposed to take care of expired sets automatically.  It makes no sense if backup chains duplicated to tape still need the original full disk backup.  I'm hoping this issue is just a setting change and not an actual problem.

PrisonerZero, can you keep this forum up to date with any progress you might make with Symantec?  I'm sure others will find it helpful.  I sure hope there is a resolution.

Thank you.

PrisonerZero
Level 3

I will indeed. I agree, its a great product in all other features and certainly an improvement on BE2012. Unfortunetly the Duplicate To Tape functionality is broken.

Its not a setting problem, Symantec checked all that. Its just a bug.Incidentally if I select the Duplicated Full Backup on tape, it only lists the tape incrementals as dependants.Selecting the HDD based Full set, it will list both HDD & tape incrementals as dependants.

The Symantec support rep I spoke to was sympathetic, but couldn't help me. He said it was designed that way to maximise data life, but this is an enterprise product, and taking away functionality (The ability to manually delete a backup set through the interface) to "protect" the data is a step in the wrong direction.

I have written a post for the feedback / features forum, but it hasn't been published yet.

In the mean time, I might have to spend the time hunting for and deleting backup sets manually and then re-cataloging. This is not something I should have to do.

 

 

 

CraigV
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited

...have you guys checked the Known Issues section to see if this is listed here?

And I have also flagged this so hopefully someone more senior in Symantec picks up on this!

Thanks!

PrisonerZero
Level 3

Ive checked, but couldnt find anything.

 

Thanks for flagging this.

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Hiya PrisonerZero,

Would you pls PM me the case number ?

Thanks.

ArtyVark
Level 3

Mine has been fixed. Sort of. Their Tech support connected to the server and made sure these two hotfixes were installed.

 

217591

218527

 

We then setup a small hourly backup and expires after an hour and left it running. It does remove the expired backup sets but its still a bit strange.

Capture.JPG

in the above picture the four expired backup sets were removed eventually. You would think it should remove them next time it backups up. It looks like they are not going to be removed but they did disappear.

capture2.JPG

as you can see the ones from 09/07 have been removed.

I was also told that the expired ones that are not being removed prior to the upgrade I have to do it manually.

 

All for the sake of Backup Exec 2014 not having a "Delete" button anymore !

 

ArtyVark
Level 3

you can have mine

 

 

 

 

jerrys79
Level 4

That's mostly good news ArtyVark.  Hope I hear the same from PrisonerZero though he previously mentioned he had those hotfixes installed.

I know you mentioned you think it should remove the expired ones the next time it backs up but I found in the admin guide that it actually works like this:

DLM searches for expired backup sets to delete from disk-based storage at the following times:

  • Every 4 hours.
  • When the low disk space threshold for disk-based storage is reached.
  • When you manually expire a backup set.

Hope that helps explain it a little better.

 

The question I have now is how do you manually delete the "old" 2010 expired sets if DLM won't delete them?  If you just go into Windows Explorer and delete the backup files, the Backup Exec database will still have references to them.  In the past, I would purge them within Backup Exec, which deletes them from the database, and then remove the files manually from the disk.  That doesn't appear possible anymore without a delete button.  Any ideas?

 

I will be doing our main site upgrade on Monday after this weekends full backup run so want to prepare as best as I can.

Thanks.