Emptying or Clearing the Desktop User Data Folder

[penn-gos]

Hello, experts and colleagues.  I'm new to the DLO so I don't know as much about the product as I'd like.  I'm hoping you can answer my question and/or offer a solution.

We have set our DLO options to use the Desktop User Data Folder, as well as the NUDF, so we can ue Delta transfer, work offline, etc., etc.  However, a couple users have recently reached storage capacity on their hard drives.

I can't find any documentation for this, but my assumption had been that, once files had been copied to the NUDF, they would be removed from the DUDF because now they are safely stored on a network folder, and the originals are on the file system, why would you need them locally?  This does not seem to be the case.

Other than giving these users new drives with a greater storage capacity, do we have any options?  Is it possible to continue using these laptops in this way?  Have others come across this?

Thank you,

Patrick Burnett

Hitachi America, Ltd.

[VJware]

Do you have revisions configured for the DUDF ? Have a look at each backup selection in the DLO profile and check if revisions are configured for the DUDF or not. This KB may help - http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO23701

And how much data is being backed up for these users ? Is the amount of backed up data for each user more than the free space of the C:\ volume or more than the total space of the C:\ volume itself ?

[NeerThadarai]

By default your data on the DLO would reside on C:\documents and Settings\userprofile\localsettings\application data\symantec\dlo\.lm (For windows XP) and for windows 7 it would be C:\users\userprofile\local\appdata\symantec\dlo\.lm

Under this you would find all the local copies of data on the local machine.

Three things you need to check here

1. Number of revisions on the DUDF that you have set for your backup selection. You would find that in the properties of your profile -->Backup Selection -->highlight each backup selection at a time and click on modify-->check in the revision control tab there you would find the number of revision you have specified for the local copy. At this point you have to decide what would be the appropriate number of revisions you want to keep locally for offline backups/restore. Ideally it should be zero if you are really concerned about the space.

2. Revision Age: profile properties-->backup selection-->highlight the selection-->modify-->Revision Control-->Revision Age

You have an option "Discard all revisions in the desktop user data folder older than x days. You can specify the days to discard the revisions of file

3. Deleted File retention: profile properties-->backup selection-->highlight the selection-->modify-->Options

You can lower the number of days for DUDF data after the source data is deleted from 60 days to any other value.

After setting the above properties properly you can also delete the .lm (C:\documents and Settings\userprofile\localsettings\application data\symantec\dlo\.lm (For windows XP) and for windows 7 it would be C:\users\userprofile\local\appdata\symantec\dlo\.lm) folder manually so that the entire backup which is stored locally is deleted and it starts from scratch for the next backups and it would store the proper data on the DUDF if required

Hope this helps

[penn-gos]

Hello Neer.  Thanks for your reply.

The problem essentially is that I do not want any data kept in my DUDF.  It seems to me that the NUDF is appropriate, yes?

So I expect the workflow to go like this:

I write or change a file -> The file is encrypted and copied to the DUDF -> The file is copied to the NUDF -> The file is removed from the DUDF because I don't need it there anymore.

It doesn't really make sense to me that the DUDF would stay in constant use and keep filling with data.  Is my assumption incorrect?  Does it not work this way?  Is there any way to MAKE it work this way?

Regards,

Patrick

[penn-gos]

Hi, VJWare, it's that it is backing up more then the free space.  We have users whose HDD is full after only a couple of weeks of use.  Please see my other reply and tell me if my understanding of the way the product works is incorrect.

regards,

Patrick 

[VJware]

As mentioned earlier, have you verified if revisions are set or not for the DUDF location ?

Secondly, DUDF is required for delta computation (a compression technique whereupon only changed bits of the file are transferred across to the NUDF)... So the DUDF would be constantly in use. Again, files would remain in the DUDF till the network copy over to the NUDF is successful.

Ofcouse, if you disable DeDupe, Delta File Transfer, Revision control for the DUDF and then disable the DUDF, the backups would directly go to the NUDF.
 

[penn-gos]

Sorry, I didn't answer the question about revisions, as I didn't realize it was relevant to my question - obviously if revisions were set the software would behave differently.  Yes, it is set to 3 revisons.

It sounds like you are saying that the DUDF, if used, will always have a complete backup, plus revisions, stored in it?  If we turn off Delta Transfer, would it only contain revisions? 

Regards,

Patrick Burnett

[VJware]

In the DUDF, the data or the revisions are always stored as full. If the space on the DUDF isn't sufficient, you could consider lowering the number of revisions (Probably set it to 1 instead of 3) to be stored on the DUDF.

And if Delta File transfer is enabled, the delta computation is done on the DUDF and then only the "deltas" i.e. the changed portions of the file are transferred and saved in the NUDF. I wouldn't recommend turning off Delta File transfer due to this reason.