NetBackup multi steam backup

[liuyang]

Hi, my master and media servers are NBU 7.1 on Windows 2008 R2. I have a file server (Windows 2003, NBU 7.1 client) in which data size is quite large (a few TBs). Currently the backup selection is by disk drive, so I have separate policy to back up C, D, E, F... My question is: when backup selection is a disk drive, e.g., E:\, is there a way to back up each folder in the drive with a new data stream? Thanks.

[Marianne · Accepted solution]

Select Allow Multiple Data Streams in Policy Attributes as a start.

Next, specify folders in Backup Selection. There are many ways to do this - a good knowledge of folder structure and size is needed.

Example 1: (This will generate a stream for each folder under E:\)
E:\*

Example 2: (This will generate a stream for each folder explicitly listed):
E:\folder1
E:\folder2
E:\folder3
E:\folder4

Example 3: (Useful if you want to group smaller folders in one stream and limit total number of streams)
NEW_STREAM
E:\folder1
E:\folder2
E:\folder3
NEW_STREAM
E:\folder4
NEW_STREAM
E:\folder5
E:\folder6
NEW_STREAM
E:\folder....
.....

Full details about Backup Selection, Multiple Streams, Wild Card selection, NEW_STREAM, etc in NBU Admin Guide for Windows, Volume I  http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC3653

IMPORTANT: ONLY make changes to Backup Selection when a Full backup is due, otherwise your incrementals will run as Full.