Setting the Optimal Blob Size for Recovery Solution

When RS is installed and you go through the Recovery Solution Cluster Creation wizard, the default size for blob files is 200 MB each. If you create the blob storage location with this default size, you are going to have 10 times as many blob files as you need. The default size of 200 MB is for testing purposes in a small test environment.

If you are using RS to back up more than about 4 machines, 2000 MB would be a more optimal blob size. (Although technically this is just under 2 GB, I'll use 2 GB to describe this amount because it's pretty close.)

Although the 200 MB blob files aren't going to cause you a problem, it's easier to manage them if there are fewer files and they are larger. Who knows, someday we may even have a little addendum to the storage location creation screen that recommends using 2000 MB (I keep using the 2000 MB because that is how you specify the size of the blob files in RS -- in MB).

The RS team recommends that you use 2000 MB as your blob file size in your production systems.

Note: The blob file size cannot be changed in the NS console once the RS cluster is created; however, KB article 22443, "How do I change the size of the BLOB file after the Recovery Solution Cluster has been created", describes how to change this value in the RS database to allow the blobs to be larger.