Problem with GRT data and .bkf files

[dbaish]

Quick overview of my situation:  I currently backup the Exchange IS using GRT.  The backup goes directly into a B2D folder so that a .bkf is created along with IMGxxxx folders for each day that it is run. 

Recently, something happened that caused the B2D folder to start creating more than just one .bkf file.  The data was being written to an IMGxxxx folder (which is good), but it was also being written to multiple .bkf files in the same B2D folder.  I figured out what was causing that.  Apparently, I was backing up the Exchange IS as well as all of the contents of the very same B2D folder.  Stupid, I know.

The B2D folder goes back about a month, and each day contains about 30GB of data.  So each day I was backing up 30GB from Exchange IS as well as a month's worth of data from that B2D folder. 

Before I permanently fix it, I have a question.  Can I simply delete the current .bkf files (about 700GB) in the B2D folder (obviously keeping the existing .cfg files), without it having an affect on being able to restore data from the older IMGxxxx folders?  I know that once I delete the .bkf files, I would have to run another job so that a new .bkf file is created for that B2D folder.  However, I still want to be able to retrieve data from the older IMGxxxx folders.  Would I be able to use the newly created .bkf file with the older IMGxxxx folders (which were created with a different .bkf) to restore the data from the B2D folder.  Unfortunately, I'm at a stage where I can't lose the data that is stored in those older IMGxxxx folders.

My understanding is that a new .bkf is created any time that a B2D job is run.  If that's the case, I should be able to delete the current .bkf files, run the same job (modified to only include the Exchange IS), and then use the newly created .bkf to restore the older IMGxxxx data.

I hope anyone that reads this can understand it.  It's hard to explain, but I would appreciate any answers or recommendations.  Thanks!

[ewadmin]

The quick answer is, no, do not delete the .bkf files.  If you don't need them anymore, then Erase them in Backup Exec; however, the IMG folders will be unrecoverable if you delete or erase the associated bkf.  But it sounds to me that you are either A) backup up more that just Exchange to this B2D folder, or B) you have the B2D option "Allocate the maximum size for backup-to-disk files" checked for this folder, and have a large Maximum size configured.

If you are performing both Exchange and file-level backups to disk, they should be separate jobs and go to separate B2D folders (for ease of identifying what is what).  A properly configured Exchange B2D folder should only have one b2d000xx.bkf file, with individual IMG00xx folders for each backup of each Data Store.  The associated b2d00xx.bkf file will be only 2kb; the backed up data is in the IMG folders, but the bkf file is a point file.  Without it I don't kow if you can inventory the IMG's to recreat it or no.  Most likely your backups are gone.

As far as normal file-level backups, yes a new .bkf file is created for each backup set and that file contains the data.  It grows until it reaches the configured maximum size, and then a new one is created.  The "Allocate maximum size" option normally just wastes disk space.