MSDP Sizing and LUN Allocation Advice needed

[Jas262]

We have New Media Server, I need to create a MSDP pool inorder to Duplicate some of our Backup's from other Media Server.

From Storage i can create Small lun's of capacity (5-10 TB) each, Our Requirement for MSDP is around 40 TB, All i need to do is to create 4 to 5 LUN's and Map to Server and create 5 MSDP pools, which is not a feasable solution as it hinders in Deduplicating of Data.

I cannot merge all the Volumes to a single MSDP pool, If i use AdvanceDisk option, i cannot either do Deduplication or SLP Duplication.

what is the best way inorder to Deduplicate all our data in a single MSDP pool?

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Hi,

You can only have one MSDP pool per server, so you have to allocate all the disk to it. If you don't want to allocate all of it now, allocate as much as you'll use in the immediate future and then you can add more luns to the volume/file system as required.

[Jas262]

How can i allocate all the disks to a single MSDP, let's take an Example: In windows we have Drive E, F, G of total size 30 TB, How can i allocate all these drives to MSDP, Is it possible?

[sdo · Accepted solution]

You need to not think so much in terms of E: F: G: etc, but more in terms of partitions mounted at mount-points.

I'm wondering if you'd be better off allocating in units of 32TB in case you ever need to expand... so maybe you could allocate a 32TB plus an 8TB.

See here re how to consider / think out mount-points that then get added to the MSDP configuration :

https://vox.veritas.com/t5/NetBackup/MSDP-250TB/m-p/869646

[RiaanBadenhorst]

Make one drive by combining all the disks together and use that. This is a basic operating system topic you're discussing here, not a NetBackup one.

[Morley72]

You need to create a dynamic disk in Windows and add any number of logical drives there.

[sdo · Accepted solution]

@Morley72  please could you post where it says that dynamic disks are supported for Windows based MSDP servers?

.

I'm not saying that dynamic disks are not supported, just pointing out that this article does not mention using dynamic disks :

https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/article.100038442

...instead, this article indicates to mount partitions at specific mount-points and to then use a NetBackup CLI command to add/configure the additional mount-points in MSDP.

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

@sdo

I don't think it cares if it's dynamic or not but the article you posted (nice one) sort of negates the requirement to one giant volume as it says the disk should be presented as separate folder mounts;

The volume used should be present as nested volumes, not as letter drives (C:, E:). Veritas qualified this solution using NTFS volumes. So I guess we can use 5TB, and just keep adding them as and when required.

Below is an example volume layout, each data# directory is a nested mount.

  "msdp_data" :["c:/msdp/data1" ,"c:/msdp/data2" ,"c:/msdp/data3" ,

   "c:/msdp/data4","c:/msdp/data5","c:/msdp/data6",

                "c:/msdp/data7"],

            "msdp_cat" :["c:/msdp/cat" ],

[andrew_mcc1]

Just be aware technote 100038442 is taken from the NBU 8.2 Dedupe Guide, previous versions of that doc state Windows MSDP support is 64 TB maximum and storage should be a provisoned as a single mount point.

Andrew