03-04-2014 07:11 AM
Dear All,
I was aware that in order to have single item recovery using GRT a temporary space is required to stage the DB for example for exchange and then from there we can pull individual item. This is case when restoring from a tape.
Today I noticed that in backup exec 2012 under config settings > storage there is staging location also set to C:\ and this is for backup jobs. Before I never noticed this item and now I want to know that does backup exec also requires same huge amount of space when running GRT based backup jobs to tape ?
See attached picture with red outlined portion. Since, it doesn't make sense to me to assign another big partition to Bexec server for GRT backup jobs so for this I need to understand how much space it requires in staging area.
Kind Regards,
Solved! Go to Solution.
03-10-2014 06:09 AM
Hello Phk,
This discussion just for understanding of space requirement. Yes, there is no problem of changing it to another drive.
Now I am clear after having chat with Symantec L2 support that space requirement for GRT backup job is not like required for restores.
So thats it... clear
03-04-2014 07:55 AM
Hi,
Please refer to this for more info on it: http://www.backupexecfaq.com/understanding-grt-backup-and-restore-functionality-in-symantec-backup-e...
03-04-2014 08:03 AM
In addition see the Backup Exec 2012 Administrators Guide page 482 about Configuring the default settings for GRT. http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5211
03-05-2014 12:04 AM
Hello Sid3009,
thanks for your reply, I already read that before posting here, but I wanted to clarify for example my Exchange DB is 100GB in size, then in order to re-store single item from it ,yes I need staging directory of 80GB but when considering case of GRT backup of this 100GB DB to tape, this also requires space of 80GB also ?
The description you posted says atleast 1gb. Currently my default path is c:\ set for GRT backup job and space free on C:\ is 90GB
For restore I've changed the default path to D:\
03-05-2014 12:26 AM
03-05-2014 12:34 AM
1 GB is the least that you need for staging. The space required for staging would depend on the total size of the database being backed up. In your case, as PKH mentioned, you'd need 100GB.
03-05-2014 12:34 AM
Hello Phk,
I didn't noticed this thing before that backup also needs space for GRT backup jobs because till now I didn't faced problem with my full backups with GRT. But still I am not convinced on this because customers using a server only for installing BE media server will buy it with normal capacity HDD and not with consideration of staging space required for backup GRT jobs. Like us we bought a normal physical server for serving role of BE server only, it doesn't have to be a machine with huge storage.
So, I opened up a discussion here to know the ideas
03-05-2014 03:57 AM
Yep, this is in the Admin Guide, and this caught me out too. Not everyone checks the Admin Guide before purchasing hardware...
I had to change the default location to a drive with enough space. I also got around problems during the automated staging (it would sometimes stop, meaning I'd need to rerun the restore multiple times) by staging to disk manually which worked well.
Thanks!
03-05-2014 04:08 AM
Hello CraigV,
I had a chat with symantec support, I asked him clearlly that equation for 'restore of GRT' is
- if exchange store is 100GB , you need to have 100GB temporary space for staging (case of restore)
But for 'GRT based backup job' , according to symantec support the data is coming from remote server to BE server and passed to tape so here equation is not 100GB = 100GB, this is what he told me (case of backup)
Any one have any other thoughts?
03-05-2014 06:18 PM
It does not matter how much staging space is used during backup. Even if backups use 50GB of staging space, you need to have at least 100GB of free space on your media server for the restore staging, unless you are planning on not doing any restores. I say "at least" because as your information store grows you would need the corresponding amount of free space. This free space can be use to stage both your backups and restores.
03-06-2014 01:38 AM
Hello Phk,
I was having concern for staging space used during backup because my location is set as C:\temp and for backup jobs purpose I don't want to change it, so wanted to know if it behaves same way as restore space requirements.
03-06-2014 01:43 AM
I've never understood why the temporary staging location is required for backups as snapshots happened on the VMs themselves (didn't do VMware backups!). At the same time, I've never received a proper explanation of this either.
I used to change the default location of the staging folder all the time as our OS volumes used to either be 11GB (Server 2003) or 50GB (Server 2008 R2) and never saw any errors doing Exchange backups as a result of this.
Thanks!
03-06-2014 04:12 AM
I'm further clarifying the requirements for GRT based on the BE 2012 Admin Guide:
Symantec recommends that you select a disk storage device for any backups that are enabled for Granular Recovery Technology(GRT). The disk storage device should be on a volume that does NOT have file size limitations. An NTFS drive is an example of a volume without file size limitations. Some examples of volumes that have file size limitations include FAT and FAT32 volumes.
If you must use a disk storage device on a volume with file size limitations, Backup Exec requires a staging location. Backup Exec temporarily stores a small amount of metadata in the staging location during the backup job. It deletes the data from the staging location when the backup is finished. The staging location is not necessary, however, if you use a disk storage device on a volume without file size limitations as the destinations(this is in case of disk storages. In terms of a Tape Based backup, we cannot predict the total amount of space required by the METADATA. It varies on the type of application that you are backing up. Example, for Exchange backups it would be different, for SQL it'd be different and so on. One thing is certain that the space required by the metadata won't cross the total size of your database).
Again the minimum requirements:
1. It is local to the Backup Exec server.
2. It does not have any file size limitations.
Additionally, Symantec recommends the following to avoid disk space problems:
1. It should not be a system volume.
2. It should have atleast 1GB of available space.
03-06-2014 07:32 AM
03-10-2014 06:09 AM
Hello Phk,
This discussion just for understanding of space requirement. Yes, there is no problem of changing it to another drive.
Now I am clear after having chat with Symantec L2 support that space requirement for GRT backup job is not like required for restores.
So thats it... clear
12-22-2016 01:49 AM
Recreate the job after changing the temporary directory.