Hi Wolfgang,

 

 It seems like something in your environment is causing the change on the file every 4 or so days.  Have you checked your Event Logs for any out of the ordinary events for when the "Incremental" actually ends up backing up like a "Full"?  Also, what type of Incrementals are you running - "Using archive bit" or "Using Modified time"?  If you are using "Modified time" are you using the same "Selection List" for all your jobs? 

 

Are you backing up a volume that contains a lot of hard links or has SIS (Single Instance Storage) installed?

 

In the template did you select "Use the Microsoft Change Journal if available" and/or "Collect additional information for synthetic backup and for true image restore"?

 

Regards,

 

Christiane

 

I had the same problem and nothing could solve it.  Plus, the synthetic backup process was taking much longer to backup my servers due to the initial scan for changed files/folders.  True image has the same problem, so I couldn't use it either.  Really disappointing.  Then there's the very useful "duplicate to tape" feature, except that you cannot use it with true images, which are required when backing up Exchange stores with the "brick level restore" option enabled. 

 

Synthetic incremental backups refuse to work with device pools, even if all of the devices contained within are disk-to-disk folders.  Why couldn't it just figure out what each of the devices are and make sure to use only the disk-to-disk folders within the device pool?!  All you then have to do is fail the job if no disk-to-disk folders are available for use in the device pool.

 

Disk-to-disk works fine, unless BE needs to create IMG disk folders, such as the case for Exchange stores with the "brick level restore" option enabled.  In that case, it cannot properly figure out how much disk space is available for use by the disk-to-disk folder and ends up running out of disk space and failing the job instead of simply jumping to another available disk-to-disk folder within the device pool.  Where's the intelligence in that?

 

BE has so many cool and great features, but you cannot use any of them due to catch-22 issues or usability issues.  :-(

 

Since when was Backup Exec designed to backup over WAN links..sound like you need to different solution

Hi Christiane,

I checked Media server and didn't see any Events neither in Appl. nor Syslog. So for the remote server as well.
We used the Synthetic Backup Policies Template, so the incremental backups are using the Archive Bit.

The selection list is unique and used for all backups (BASELINE, Incremental, and Synth.)

There is also no other backup software attached to the target (remote) machine which could change archive bit.

 

Wait.... I've got one idea, while I looked thru the installed applications on the remote machine. For limitations of Quotas we use "Quota and File Sentinel 5.2" from NTP software. As the qouta limitations (policies) are assigned to the exact same folders as the ones which getting backed up, there might be a link between QFS and BE Synthetic backup. I'm really not sure but I'm at the ned of ideas.....

 

Thanks

Wolfgang

 

Nearly forgot: Synthetic Backup Check mark has been set. Journal is unchecked.

A Symantec Sales Rep. already proposed to get NetBackup Pure Disk 6.2 as an ideal solution for remote backups. The white papers are really promising amazing stuff. However, extensive tests will show how and if this works as expected.

 

Regards

Wolfgang

Puredisk is a good solution