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Zeroed VMDKs and Exclude Deleted Blocks in VMware policy

vksingh
Level 4

Can someone confirm if I enable "Exclude Deleted Blocks" in the Vmware policy type, VMs which has lazy or eager zeroed thick disks will not backup free space?

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Accepted Solutions

vksingh
Level 4

Tested it and know it for sure now that free FILESYSTEM space will NOT be backed up even on lazy or eager zeroed thick disks if "exclude delete blocks" have been enabled

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6 REPLIES 6

vksingh
Level 4

Anyone has any information on this?

RamNagalla
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified

yes, it will not backup the free space..

but if you enable this option  you would not be able to do the file recovery from the VM backups.

see below from netbackup Vmware admin guide

Enable file recovery fromVMbackup
This option allows restore of individual files from the backup. With or without this option,
you can restore the entire virtual machine.
You can also use this option for incremental backups: in the policy schedule, select
differential incremental backup or cumulative incremental backup.
To perform a VMware backup to a deduplication storage unit, select this option. This
option provides the best deduplication rates.
To back up a virtual machine that contains Veritas Storage Foundation Volume Manager
volumes, disable this option. Also make sure that the Exclude deleted blocks option is
disabled.

 

Exclude deleted blocks

Reduces the size of the backup image by excluding any unused or deleted blocks within
the file system on the virtual machine. This option supports the following file systems:
Windows NTFS, and Linux ext2, ext3, and ext4.
This option uses proprietary mapping technology to identify vacant sectors (allocated
but empty) within the file system.
See “About reducing the size of VMware backups” on page 109.
To back up a virtual machine that contains Veritas Storage Foundation Volume Manager
volumes, disable this option. Also make sure that the Enable file recovery fromVM
backup option is disabled.

vksingh
Level 4

That has got me worried. Where does it say that if you enabled "Exclude Deleted Blocks" you cannot do file level recovery?

RamNagalla
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Certified
To back up a virtual machine that contains Veritas Storage Foundation Volume Manager
volumes, disable this option. Also make sure that the Exclude deleted blocks option is
disabled.
 
may be it is limitted only to the VMs contains Veritas Storage Foundation Volume Manager Volumes , worth testing in and let us know ..  :)

vksingh
Level 4

Thats is ok. This is only for Veritas Vol Mgr Vols.

I will be testing in next couple of weeks and will post the results. I have read the documents before and know deleted block will be excluded if I enable this option. Question was about how eager zero filled disks in VMs behave.

As zero filling a disk does not allocation the blocks to File System I am expecting zero filling will not change the behaviour. Was looking for confirmation if anyone has already tested.  

vksingh
Level 4

Tested it and know it for sure now that free FILESYSTEM space will NOT be backed up even on lazy or eager zeroed thick disks if "exclude delete blocks" have been enabled