Registry backup is bloated

[gisac]

Hi

I'm running ArcServe 2000 on NT, with Seagate AIT drive & Sony 35/70GB tapes.

Can someone please help me understand why registry backups are always larger than the registry file itself?

I find in the Backup log summary, that a server's registry size - total size (disk) -is 14mb, but the backup size - total size (media)- is 256mb.

In addition, the throughput rate is miserable.

Thanks.

 

[ARCserveGuru]

When you backup your machine, the registry is usually backed up twice.

Once if you have selected the WINNT directory, and then twice if you click on the registry button when configuring the backup.

Think of the registry as a database. The registry button you select if only the registry keys that are able to restore without harming the system, i.e. HKLM, and HKU...

As such, much more information needs to be written to the media in order to know exactly where in the registry each key belongs, etc...

Also, there is the problem of the blocksize on your tape unit. If it is set to 64K blocks, then if you have a 1K file, it will backup the 1 K and then fill the rest of the block (63K) with junk filler. There are registry hacks to change the blocksize on you unit, simply go to support.ca.com and search for blocksize, or other keywords along those lines.

A combination of these two factors would probably be bloating out your registry and any other small files.

guru