Netbackup 7.1 backing up whitespace

[WharfRat73]

We have just upgraded to NetBackup 7.1 from 7.0.1 and now 2 of our Windows Flash Backup policies are backing up unused white space.  These are not VCB backups. 

When we were using 7.0.1 this wasn't happening.  Any idea if there is a setting change that I need to make somewhere to stop this from happening?

Thanks in advance. 

[pikachu]

I assume you are talking about vstorage backups. You have to enable 'exclude unused and deleted blocks'.

[Mark_Solutions]

The setting to exclude these is found under the snapshot opions section - accessed from the Attributes tab of the policy

[WharfRat73]

I don't have that option available.  When I go to the snapshot options section, at the top it says Auto and there are no other options.  When I hit the drop down, my other options other than Auto are VSP, VSS or VxVM.  We aren's using an off-host backup with this client.

Thanks.

[pikachu]

On a normal FlashBackup-Windows policy, you can not exclude white spaces. Only VCB/vStorage Backups allow you to exclude white spaces.

It is an entire raw device dump.

[WharfRat73]

That is what I thought, but in 7.0.1 it wasn't backing up the whitespace.  The policies are setup exactly the same in 7.1 as they were in 7.0.1.  Any idea why it would've been working in 7.0.1 and not in 7.1?

[pikachu]

Flashbackup always writes the white spaces.

Did you check the previous backups?

[Marianne]

I am curious about your 7.0.1 experience...

I have been working with FlashBackup since it first came out for Solaris clients. I have never seen it NOT backing whitespace (except when used with VMware backups).
It has always been pointed out in the manuals that FlashBackup was better suited for near-full volumes because it does a block-level backup of the raw device.

In the 7.0 Snapshot Client Admin Guide (there wasn't a new doc for 7.0.1) FlashBackup is recommended for the following scenarios:

■ the file system contains a large number of files
■ and most of the file system blocks are allocated

[WharfRat73]

Yeah, I double-checked them and it definately wasn't backing up the whitespace in 7.0.1.  We are just trying to figure out if there is a setting somewhere that we missed.

[WharfRat73]

I agree and that is why we find it strange, that the old version for whatever reason wasn't backing up the whitespace.  We were just comparing our backups after the upgrade and we noticed the difference in backup sizes post upgrade and we are trying to figure out why.  I was wondering if there was a setting somewhere that we were missing.

[WharfRat73]

I changed this backup job to a MS Windows backup and it is still backing up the whitespace.

[Mark_Solutions]

A normal Windows backup cannot backup white space

If you are basing this on the Disk usage compared to how much data is backed up then i think you will find that some or all of you drive is compressed

Check out the difference between Size and Size On Disk

[Marianne]

I agree with Mark - NOT POSSIBLE.

MS-Windows policy backs up NTFS filesystem.

Please post Client's bpbkar log as well as screenshot of drive letter properties.

[WharfRat73]

I backup 2 drives

drive 1 has 25 GB used of 295 GB (size and size on disk are virtually the same)

drive 2 has 810 GB used of 2 TB (size and size on disk differ by 8 GB

NBU is backing up approx 2.3 TB's

How do I get the bpbkar log file?

[Marianne]

Create the bpbkar folder under ...\netbackup\logs on the client. Log file will be created next time a backup runs.

[Mark_Solutions]

So if you select all folders on one of the drives and then right click and select properties, what are the figures for size and size on disk Even easier - do any of the folders on either drive look blue in Windows explorer?

[WharfRat73]

Drive 1: Size = 24.6 GB Size on Disk = 25.2 GB

Drive 2: Size = 793 GB Size on Disk = 801 GB

[Mark_Solutions]

Do you have any mount points on these drives - either something is getting backed up twice or there is something linking esle where.

Try, depending on what drive letters they are:

dir E:\ /s

Scripts etc are also available, see here for a tip:

http://thenonapeptide.blogspot.com/2010/04/listing-all-volume-mount-points-on.html