File Collector and CAB's

[The_Judge]

Hi,

Can anyone shed tell me information on the file collector process?

What is does?

Is it worth Runing?

When do the DVS files change to CAB files?

How long would it typically take to run?

Is there any documentation regarding the file collector?

Cheers

[TonySterling · Accepted solution]

Here is an excerpt from the Admin guide:

Enterprise Vault Collector.

Enterprise Vault Collector combines multiple small files on the partition into much larger, collection files, which may give you a significant improvement in backup times. You can configure the maximum size of the collection files to suit your backup device.

If your backups are taking a long time it might be worth looking at your options.  It runs based on a schedule start and stop time you set, most often this is during the day.

For your performance question this is from the performance guide:

NTFS collections

After archiving, items may be collected into CAB files of 10 MB, allowing quicker

backups or transfer to tertiary storage. The collection process is fairly lightweight

and normally runs during the day. Items are collected at approximately twice the

rate at which they are archived.

Note that NTFS collections are not connected with Centera collections.

[The_Judge]

Hi Tony,

All i can find in the Admin guide regarding collectors is regarding PST migration, Is this what the collector is used for?

Thanks

[TonySterling]

No, that collection process is different.

Do a search for Vault Store Partition Properties: Collections in the Admin Help and you will get a couple hits.  One will be for Centera and the other NTFS.

You can also look on the properties of the Partition on the Collection tab and click help there and that should open the relevant information.

Regards,

[The_Judge]

Excellent, thanks again.

The way i see it, you would only need to enable file collection if we were having problems backing up the vault store partition?, i.e the amount of files it had to back up?

Running the file collector would reduce the amount of files by putting a collection of DVS files into a CAB file?

Thanks

[MarkBarefoot]

That's correct. The primary reason for introducing collections is to improve backup windows. Backup takes longer to backup many small files and is more effecient when backing up larger files.