windows-flash ms-windows vss backing up whole disk

[padie]

Running an off-host backup using either windows-flash or ms-windows policy types and a hardware vss provider, netbackup is backing up the whole disk rather than just the data. Is it possible to just get the data backed up?

[Ed_Wilts]

That's what it does.  However, when you actually put that to a common tape drive, the null data will be compressed away.

[RiaanBadenhorst · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Your problem is related to your setup, and choice of policy type (and you've tested 2).

If you perform an offhost MS-WINDOWS policy using a FULL it will back all the files as it should (just the files). This is not an issue as its expected.

If you perform an offhost/onhost FlashBackup-Windows using a FULL it will back the entire volume (the whole file system as it is backing up the underlying blocks of the file system). This is normal.

Now if you were to do either an offhost MS-Windows/FlashBackup-Windows incremental, you need to setup netbackup to perform incrementals based on time stamp, and not archive bit (the default).

The reason for this is that with a FlashBackup-Windows policy the backup is performed on the underlying blocks, so the archive bit is never reset. And for a offhost MS-Windows policy you're mounting a snapshot of the file system on another system, so the archive bits also never get reset.