dlo 7.6 pst backup via vss - no vss events in eventviewer

[s_support]

i'm trying to do some testing with backup up pst files with vss, and have checked article tech196101, and have ensured that all the points are correct, however i do not see any vss events showing up in the event viewer when the pst backup is running.

is this correct?  or is something not set up right?

1 copy on nudf and dudf is set, delta transfer is ticked.

could this also be related to pst backups always running full and not incremental?

Phil.

[s_support]

further to my above post, i noticed that, after deleting emails from the pst, no new files or backups get listed in the agent console, this is the same when adding emails into the pst file.

in mapi backup, pending files show up instantly, and are run on the next schedule.

this is not happening for vss backups.

Phil

[VJware]

When MAPI based backup is enabled, the Agent UI will display mail by mail as a backup item, whereas when VSS based backup is enabled, the Agent UI will display the name of the .pst itself as the backup item.

 Is the option to run vss enabled backup every x minutes also checked ? Are the VSS services on the client enabled ? Lastly, If VSS based option is correctly enabled, try deleting the .settings folder from the affected client and recheck.

[s_support]

yeah, nothing gets displayed in the agent ui when i make changes to the pst file in outlook.

the option to run vss enabled backup every x minutes is checked (its set to 30minutes default).

i will try to delete the settings folder and try again.

Phil

[s_support]

further to my above email, i noticed that volume shadow copy service is set to manual, and is currently now stopped.  i'm assuming this is normal, as it only starts when required to run vss?

[s_support]

so i've deleted the .settings folder, and it seems to now register that changes have been made to the pst.  as soon as i delete an email from the pst, the agent ui shows pending local backup, which is better.

i have now observed that, "incremental" backups using vss takes a VERY long time, for example, i deleted 2 emails from the PST file, and from start to finish of the whole backup process, it completed after 15 minutes.... this was for only 2 emails deleted!

i took screen shots of each of the DUDF and NUDF folders, the temp files it creates during the process, everything, from start to finish.

15minutes seems like a very lengthy process for VSS of PST?!?!

i am going to do testing of MAPI incremental backups, and see how long it takes, for the exact same scenario.

vjware, if you want to see my screenshots and findings, please let me know and i'll pm you.

Phil.

[VJware]

VSS based backups of .pst are slower than MAPI based, however they are more robust and consistent in terms of backup/restore.

Have you tried creating the reigstry keys as mentioned in the earlier posts to speed up the backup process a bit ? Here is the KB - http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH167369

[s_support]

those registry keys relate to slow local copy issues, and with disk throttling.  i enabled logging, and did not notice anything along the lines of this:

Look for lines like the following:

diskthrottle.cpp( 228 ) Read queue: 8.73956, sleeping for 2000ms

diskthrottle.cpp( 228 ) Read queue: 4.50836, sleeping for 1254ms

diskthrottle.cpp( 228 ) Read queue: 11.5639, sleeping for 2000ms

diskthrottle.cpp( 228 ) Read queue: 3.54665, sleeping for 773ms

diskthrottle.cpp( 228 ) Read queue: 2.85208, sleeping for 426ms

diskthrottle.cpp( 228 ) Read queue: 14.9235, sleeping for 2000ms

diskthrottle.cpp( 228 ) Read queue: 5.72238, sleeping for 1861ms

diskthrottle.cpp( 228 ) Read queue: 6.50065, sleeping for 2000ms

there were diskthrottle events, but they weren't all in a row like the above and the article, they were spread out in the log, and read queus were averaging 2.xx, and sleeping was very small.