VmWare backup FULL and DIFF almost same size

[X2]

I was looking around for details of backup for one of the servers I upgraded and although the backups were successful, I noticed that they were of almost same size. This is a VM backed up using VmWare method with target as MSDP. The one big difference was number of files backed up. Full had a lot more files listed than diff backup. See example below. I checked other machines in the cluster and on other clusters too with similar observation. There are a few non-VmWare backups with target MSDP but their FULL is much bigger than a DIFF.

Is it normal that VMWare backups report similar size of data backed up? Is reporting any different for VMware in activity monitor?

This is on a NBU domain with 7.6.0.3.

Thanks.

1176398	Backup	Done		0	VmWarePolicy	VMWARE-Full	clientFQDN	nbuMediaServer	2/19/2015 10:02:27 PM	MSDP.storage	2/19/2015 10:15:13 PM	1		54283021	174375	1176384
1174320	Backup	Done		0	VmWarePolicy	VMWARE-Diff	clientFQDN	nbuMediaServer	2/18/2015 10:01:51 PM	MSDP.storage	2/18/2015 10:56:12 PM	1		54109795	664	1174312
1172260	Backup	Done		0	VmWarePolicy	VMWARE-Diff	clientFQDN	nbuMediaServer	2/17/2015 10:02:27 PM	MSDP.storage	2/17/2015 10:17:12 PM	1		54116914	4624	1172249
1170186	Backup	Done		0	VmWarePolicy	VMWARE-Diff	clientFQDN	nbuMediaServer	2/16/2015 10:02:24 PM	MSDP.storage	2/16/2015 10:10:43 PM	1		42812231	441	1170177
1168114	Backup	Done		0	VmWarePolicy	VMWARE-Diff	clientFQDN	nbuMediaServer	2/15/2015 10:02:22 PM	MSDP.storage	2/15/2015 10:11:23 PM	1		42806544	420	1168101
1166044	Backup	Done		0	VmWarePolicy	VMWARE-Diff	clientFQDN	nbuMediaServer	2/14/2015 10:02:05 PM	MSDP.storage	2/14/2015 10:10:53 PM	1		42810090	410	1166030
1163988	Backup	Done		0	VmWarePolicy	VMWARE-Diff	clientFQDN	nbuMediaServer	2/13/2015 10:02:22 PM	MSDP.storage	2/13/2015 10:10:52 PM	1		42807184	397	1163979
1161895	Backup	Done		0	VmWarePolicy	VMWARE-Full	clientFQDN	nbuMediaServer	2/12/2015 10:02:27 PM	MSDP.storage	2/12/2015 10:13:33 PM	1		42928205	176157	1161884

PS: The jump from around 42GB to around 54GB of backed up data was due to temporary data being put on server. FULL and DIFF are still similar in size.

[RamNagalla · Accepted solution]

as far as i know it is a normal behavior .. even i have seen this..

in my opining...

it might be because of the snapshots that i took while backups and to keep the integrity of the backup images with previous full backups.. for restores...

you can observer this when you are going for a restore.. even you select the incr images for Full VM restore it is able to perfrom the restore.. .. somewhere it is doing intelligent work to make the full VM restore happen even from incr backups..

[Marianne]

A couple of TNs: 

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH129738 

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH189975 
(Although supposed to be fixed in 7.5.0.3)

[Dollypee]

If you are leveraging CBT for diff, the size of incremental should be much smaller to full backup. Incase of restore of entire VM, netbackup will still intelligently merge all required data for full recovery. Thank you