Veritas Backup Exec 9.1 - Weekly Backups based on Quarterly backup?

[AndyDixon]

Hi everyone,

I'm quite new to Backup Exec, and have a question regarding

we are using Veritas Backup Exec 9.1.

The previous Backup Admin somehow had Backup Exec set up to perform full (normal) backups every Thurs evening based on the data backed up in our quarterly backup (which backs up everything). We also do Differential backups Mon > wed and Fri.

Our external IT Consultant has informed me that this is a feature of Backup Exec but cannot remember how it is done.

I'm not sure if this was the way the system was set up, however, our normal (weekly) backups used to be around 30GB wheras now they are 63GB. THis is causing me to have to continue the backup in the morning by changing our tapes over as they only hold 40GB uncompressed.

Is there a way to do this?

Any help would be appreciated. And I apologise in advance if this post doesn't make sense.

Andy

 

[LawnBoy]

...perform full (normal) backups every Thurs evening based on the data backed up in our quarterly backup (which backs up everything).

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Full backups are not "based" on anything except the selection list. Every file in the selection list is backed up regardless of if or when it has been backed up before.

Can you describe what types of jobs are running in what order in more detail?

 

[birky]

Whats your rate of change on the data that you are backing up?

Switch to incremental instead of diffs


PinnacleData Systems (UK)

 

[AndyDixon]

Ok, every year in June we backup up *everything*. This is our "Annual" backup. Every 3 months we back everything up and this is stored off site - our "Quarterly" backup. Every Thursday we back selected user folders / data up - our "normal / full" backup. Mon to Weds and Fri we perform a Differential backup based on Thursday's backup.

The annual and quarterly use the same selection list. As do the normal and differential.

My question is that our Thursday backups were significantly smaller (30GB now 63GB) and I wondered if they were based on the quarterly backup somehow?

Our rate of change for the user folders is quite significant. Other data changes much less. (SQL and database data).

THanks for responding.

 

[LawnBoy]

A Full Backup is a stand-alone set, and is not related to any other backup.

I would browse the user folders looking for .mp3's and video files. I've also seen users use NTbackup and store the entire image on the network.

 

[AndyDixon]

Thanks Lawnboy - our external IT consultant seemed adamant there was a way for Veritas to "tell" what had been backed up previously (other than the archive bit) and base other backups on this "baseline" backup.

Seems he was mistaken if the backup is a standalone.

 

[LawnBoy]

Well, incremental and differential are based on previous backups, but full backups are not.

 

[birky]

If the diffs were being related to the quartely backups they would be a lot higher than 63Gb.

As LawnBoy says, have a check at what you are actually backing up in your user dirs.

Also I'd be tempted to create another policy and run a full and incremental against it to see how much you backup.

PinnacleData Systems (UK)

 

[AndyDixon]

Thanks, both of you!

It's cleared up the muddle with the backups in one sense. Now I know the Thursday backups are in no way related to either the annual or the quarterly, and that the diff is based solely on the Thursday full backup!

I'll have a look in the user folders and run another policy as Birky says ...