Settings for Deduplicating Storage Appliances

Settings for Deduplicating Storage Appliances

If you use a deduplicating storage appliance as a backup repository, it is recommended that you specify the following settings:

EMC Data Domain

• The Align backup file data blocks option must not be enabled.

• The Decompress backup data blocks before storing option is enabled by default.

• The This repository is backed up by rotated hard drives option is disabled.

• The Use per-VM backup files option should be enabled*.

ExaGrid

• The Align backup file data blocks option must not be enabled.

• The Decompress backup data blocks before storing option is disabled by default.

• The This repository is backed up by rotated hard drives option is disabled by default.

• The Use per-VM backup files option should be enabled*.

• Limit max concurrent tasks is equal to 1 (recommended, by default)

HPE StoreOnce

• The Align backup file data blocks option must not be enabled.

• The Decompress backup data blocks before storing option is enabled by default.

• The This repository is backed up by rotated hard drives option is disabled.

• The Use per-VM backup files option is enabled.

* If you upgrade to Veeam Backup & Replication 9.0 from previous product versions, this option will be disabled to ensure the existing backup repositories works as before. If you want to create per-VM backup chains, you can edit the backup repository settings and enable this option.

Verify that the NTDS VSS writer is stable

From an elevated command prompt run the following command:

vssadmin list writers
The results will appear as:
Writer name: 'NTDS'
Writer Id: {b2014c9e-8711-4c5c-a5a9-3cf384484757}
Writer Instance Id: {ee24b741-eaf7-4663-8f95-b92ae8c5e164}
State: [1] Stable
Last error: No error

If the NTDS writer is not listed as "State: [1]Stable", reboot the DC (Domain Controller).

Repository Planning - NTFS

File System Formats

In addition to the storage stripe size alignment, as explained in the 

previous paragraph, the file system may also benefit from using a 

larger cluster size (or Allocation Unit Size). For example, during formatting of NTFS volumes, 

Allocation Unit Size is set to 4KB by default. 

To mitigate fragmentation issues, configure to 64 KB whenever possible.

Using "Large File" Switch for NTFS

A file size limitation can be occasionally reached on NTFS, especially on Windows Server with

deduplication enabled. This happens due to a hard limit reached on the file records size because of

the high level of file fragmentation. To mitigate the issue, we recommend to format Windows NTFS

repositories with the "/L" (large files) option.

format E: /A:64K /L:enable /q /FS:NTFS

When to use encryption / What can I encrypt

When to use encryption?

There are several use cases where encryption can be useful and needs to be applied. The most common cases are the following:

• Regulatory, policy or company-specific directives to store backups in an encrypted form

• Off-site backups to a Veeam Cloud Connect provider

• Off-site backups using unencrypted tapes (hardware level)

• Off-site backup to a repository that consists of rotated drives

What can I encrypt?

The encryption algorithms are configured at the job level and the media pool level. With Veeam Backup & Replication, you can encrypt the following jobs:

• Configuration backup

• Backup job

• Backup copy job

• Backup to tape job

• VeeamZIP