Topic: Backup to desktop

[Paul Schwartz]

Client: NTFS (Windows 2000)
Server: SME 5.6 / all updates

It hits 1.99GB then dumps the file to my desktop.  This is pitiful.  SME uses the ext3 file system and the client is NTFS.

What's the deal.  Can someone explain what is going on?  Is this a design flaw in SME?  What needs to be done to fix it?

[Reggie Cole]

Paul,
  I went through this very scenario last year when I upgraded from 5.5 to 5.6 unfortunately no one was able to help me the best offer I got was to install a tape drive which really didn't help since the amount of data I needed to backup was well above the capacity of the tape. The backup program that doesn't backup to the desktop beyond 1.99Gb won't backup to tape if your data takes more than 1 tape, see there's nothing in the backup program to span more than 1 tape. In the end I had to copy the contents of my Ibay's to another machine until the remaining data came in under the 1.99Gb, install the new version of SME and complete a restore from desktop and finish by moving all the data back to their respective Ibay's. I know this isn't what you wanted to hear but I thought I'd pass my experience on so that you don't hang out there wondering if there's a way to fix or workaround this problem. Good luck

[Ray Mitchell]

Paul
This has been covered extensively in these forums, during 2002 and 2003, so search back a long way on backup, 2Gb, 3.99Gb and backup2ws.

The quick answer is the 2Gb limit is to do with the backup compression method used and smb limitations. Even though the ext3 & NTFS file systems handle large file sizes, the backup method in conjunction with smb is where the problem comes in. There will also be an issue with restoring large files too. Also some browsers do not work well with the large (ie Gb) sized files encountered in this sort of backup and restore, so try a different browser if the restore hangs (IE 5.5 is bad in this regard).

The alternative is to use backup2ws contrib from D May at www.contrib.org. It puts a nice panel in server manager. You can specify 2Gb (or whatever) sized chunks, and the backup creates multiple parts each of this size thus avoiding the 2Gb max file size problem. I backup 30Gb of data this way, but it takes nearly 24 hours on a P333 with 256Mb RAM. The Disaster Recovery 911 backup job will backup everything needed to get your server up and running again on a cleanly installed OS.

There is a bug in the restore part of backup2ws which requires you to specify the first location twice in order for it to restore correctly. See Darrell Mays forum at myezserver site for my post about this.

Regs
Ray

[Kelvin]

G'Day Paul and Regie,

As Ray mentioned, this has been brought up before. The 2GB limitation within smbfs is what prevents you from doing a backup to desktop larger than 2GB. This has been addressed but I don't know of anyone who has done it for SME (it's not a trivial fix, as I understand it).

Your options are :-

1. If you continue to want to do backups to desktop
Use Darrell May's backup2ws contrib as suggested by Ray

2. If you use a tape drive (which I prefer)
Forget about flexbackup (seriously !) and use Shad Lord's Arkeia backup contrib (even if your backups don't exceed the capacity of a single tape). If you ever need to do a selective restore to your server, you'll find Arkeia to be a lifesaver, especially if you have to deal with non-technical end users to do the restore. And if you go with tape drives, avoid Travan type tape drives if at all possible.

Regards,

Kelvin

[Jim Huneycutt]

Kelvin,
I have tried to avoid tape drives in favor of RAID drives and remote backup of ibays, but I have a case where I may need to install one. The backup size will be in the 40gb range. Do you have a recommended model that SME 5.6  or 6.0 + Arekeia will support and work well with? If not Travan, then what do you recommend.

Thanks,
jim

[Dan Brown]

I'll agree with Kelvin--Travan drives, in my experience, haven't been worth the power it took to run them.  They'd back up whatever I wanted, but I never was able to successfully restore from one (in spite of routinely verifying my backups).  I've heard good things about the reliability of DLT.

[Kelvin]

Hi Jim,

I've worked successfully with the following drives :-

1. OnStream DI-30
On the surface, this drive will sort of remind you of a Travan type drive (except with bigger cartridges !). However, the technology it seems is superior and in the field, I've not had one let me down yet. The same however, cannot be said about the company itself as the company has gone bankcrupt, last I heard.

2. DAT drives (take your pick)
I still use these for smaller servers (I don't use the newer high capacity DATs, preferring the AIT-1s instead)

3. Sony AIT-1 drives (Both IDE and SCSI)
These are my current favourite drives for the 35 - 90GB Range.

4. DLTs
Least amongst the list as the media is expensive

And yes, in every case, I use arkeia and not flexbackup. RAID does not help when you need to restore files (I employ RAID as required as well) and tapes are simpler for my non-technical minded users to get into the routine of daily changing the tape and taking them offsite. Hope this helps.

Kelvin

[Jim Huneycutt]

Good info Kelvin.
Thanks!