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Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage? (Read 12207 times)
GrahamG
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Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Feb 5th, 2007 at 4:44pm
 
I have made a partition called Backup on a secondary drive size 88gb. In Ghost10 - Optimise recovery point storage - Options - I ticked the "Monitor disk space to use for recovery point storgae" at maximum= 87.9gb. I also ticked the "Automatically optimise storage" to delete old recovery point sets to remain within threshold without prompting.

The problem is that the last backup was last run 5 days ago. In the log file for the last 5 days I get the same error message.

Description: Error EC8F17B7: Cannot create recovery points for job: Recovery point of C:\. Info 60BB0161: Unexpected VSS Provider error. See the application event log. Error EA390719: Target disk full.
Details: 0xEBAB0005
Source: Norton Ghost


It seems that Ghost is not deleting any old recovery points, or it is not deleting enough to provide enough space for a new backup.


Do I need to backup the warning point threshold to (say) 60gb to make things work, or is there a better way?

Also on the days earlier in time when the backups did work I still see an error.

Description: Info 6C8F0436: A scheduled incremental recovery point of C:\ completed successfully. Info 60BB0161: Unexpected VSS Provider error. See the application event log.
Details:
Source: Norton Ghost


The VSS provider error doesn't seem to be causing an error, but is there a fix?





 
 
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Brian
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #1 - Feb 5th, 2007 at 4:59pm
 
GrahamG,

The latest image (recovery point) is created by Ghost before the oldest image is deleted. You full is your drive? What is the used space? How large are your recovery points? Are you creating incrementals?
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #2 - Feb 5th, 2007 at 8:15pm
 
Hi, the hardrive is 300gb, but the Ghost partition is 88gb (Backup G:). Yes it's set for incrementals.

At the moment there is C_Drive001.v2i 14.3gb, with incrementals C_Drive001_i001.iv2i thru i008iv2i. Various sizes 384kb thru 306kb.
Then there is C_Drive004.v2i 14.8gb, with incrementals C_Drive004_i001.iv2i thru i007iv2i. Various sizes 70kb thru 4.5gb.
Then there is C_Drive005.v2i 14.8gb, with incrementals C_Drive005_i001.iv2i thru i007iv2i. Various sizes 1000kb thru 19,08gb.

This is hard to describe. Basically there is Drive001,003,004,005,006 each approx 14-18gb, each drive also having about 8x incrementals. Only Drive006 the last one made has no incrementals.

The total space used is 87.1gb with 800mb free.

If as you say the latest image is created BEFORE the oldest is deleted then this explains things. I would have thought it did the opposite. I have just slid the "Monitor disk storage usage.." slider to 57gb as an experiment. It is due to backup every morning at 2am. I am curious to see what happens.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #3 - Feb 5th, 2007 at 8:22pm
 
GrahamG wrote on Feb 5th, 2007 at 8:15pm:
The total space used is 87.1gb with 800mb free.

A general rule is to keep a partition less than 85% full. So 57+14 (prior to the deletion) is 82% which is fine. Let us know if it works.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #4 - Feb 5th, 2007 at 8:55pm
 
GrahamG,

With your C_Drive005 series, do you have an .iv2i file that is larger than its parent .v2i?

My .iv2i files average less than 2% of the size of the parent .v2i.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #5 - Feb 6th, 2007 at 12:05am
 
Ok on the slider setting, it is approx 3/4 across.

Yes drive005 is 18.8gb, it's iv2i series is 613,000kb, 1024kb, 28,928kb, 1,030,144kb, 19,100,000kb, 36,350kb, 35,968kb

drive006 14,860,000kb.

So I dont know what happened on the 5th one. Maybe I installed a program? The drop from 18.8gb to 14.86gb is about right as I removed and archived approx 4gb of Outlook .PST files recently. 

I do wish Ghost could indicate when it detects the installation of a new program and give it's name. Mine is setup to trigger when a new program is installed.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #6 - Feb 6th, 2007 at 12:11am
 
GrahamG,

Running a defragmentation app can make the incrementals vary in size. Which app do you use and how often?
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #7 - Feb 6th, 2007 at 10:35am
 
Thats a good point. I use Distrix UltimateDefrag it's scheduled defrag's are 1x per week. Mybe I should relax it to 1x per month?
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #8 - Feb 6th, 2007 at 2:15pm
 
I think you are doing baseline recovery points weekly so it's fine to do your defrags weekly but before the baseline recovery point is created on that day.

I found that large blocks of data were being moved around (in the defrag graphic) independently of defragging. This was the major cause of a large incremental. Could you keep an eye on your graphic for the next few weeks and see if there is any correlation? I don't know why these data blocks move.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #9 - Feb 6th, 2007 at 6:12pm
 
I think you are doing baseline recovery points weekly - Not sure if I am, in Edit Schedule "Start a new recovery point set = monthly. I cannot find where I can set the baseline recovery points.

I will look into the defrag as suggested.

Last night I performed a manual Clean up in the Optimise Recovery Point Storage window. I deleted an earlier backup and consolidated another one. This gave me about 40gb of used space (well below the "Monitor disk space slider set at 57.1gb).

During today I have been moving some 1-2gb files on and off the C drive and periodically setting the Ghost schedule to do a backup in order to force decent size incremental backups.

This went fine for 5 backups , here is a typical log.

Description: Info 6C8F0436: A scheduled incremental recovery point of C:\ completed successfully. Info 60BB0161: Unexpected VSS Provider error. See the application event log.


But on the 6th backup I get an error.


Description: Error EC8F17B7: Cannot create recovery points for job: Recovery point of C:\. Info 60BB0161: Unexpected VSS Provider error. See the application event log. Error E0BB0083: Unable to create incremental image. Error EA390719: Target disk full. Error EA390719: Target disk full.
Details: 0xEBAB0005


Here is the wierd part.

In optimise Recovery Point storage

2 recovery Points  1/26 to 1/31  36.4 gb
1 recovery Point    2/5   14.2 gb
6 recovery Points  2/6 to 2/6 13.3 gb

Disk used 87.6gb, free space 273mb, space used for recovery point storage 63.9gb

But when I use Explore and look at the Norton Recovery folder I do see the 1/26 thru 2/6 files = 63.9gb, but also other Symantec image files 1/15 thru 1/20 = 24.1gb

It seems that Ghost knows that there are files in the folder, and although they are valid Symantec image files it ignores them.

The bottom line is that Ghost did not automatically delete any files to make space for new ones today. And when I did the consolidate thing last night did Ghost delete anything, it took hours. I should have checked with Explorer, but didn't.






 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #10 - Feb 6th, 2007 at 6:17pm
 
I meant to ask, what is the "Unexpected VSS Provider error" is this important?
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #11 - Feb 6th, 2007 at 7:41pm
 
GrahamG wrote on Feb 6th, 2007 at 6:17pm:
I meant to ask, what is the "Unexpected VSS Provider error" is this important?

I don't know.

Quote:
The bottom line is that Ghost did not automatically delete any files to make space for new ones today. And when I did the consolidate thing last night did Ghost delete anything, it took hours. I should have checked with Explorer, but didn't.

I don't ask Ghost to delete recovery points. I do it manually. This is how I setup the weekly schedule.

Quote:
Start Ghost 10
Click Back up Now
click Define New backup
Define Backup Wizard opens, Next
select the drive to backup, Next
choose Recovery point set (recommended), Next
Choose location and filename, Next
Choose desired compression, Tick Verify recovery point after creation, Choose your Limit...(I leave unticked), ignore Advanced unless you want to split the image, Next
Dot in Scheduled, click Define Custom Schedule
Scheduling tab,Top part is for the days and the time that recovery points (Base and Incremental) will be created. I tick all days.
Untick "Create more than one recovery point per day" if you only need one , otherwise choose the number of incremental recovery points
Choose frequency of Base recovery points at the bottom, eg weekly, monthly, etc    I choose weekly
Click "Event trigger" tab, Choose any of the four or leave unticked, (I leave unticked) OK, Next
Tick "Create recovery point now" if you want it done before the scheduled time, Finish
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 - Optimise recovery point storage?
Reply #12 - Feb 7th, 2007 at 1:42am
 
Thanks I will try the settings. I was using Acronis Trueimage previously. It was fine on this PC, but I had problems with a Toshiba Laptop because if I used a boot CD it would not recognise the external USB hard drive. So potentially it was useless on the laptop. Ghost worked great on the laptop and it's CD does see the USB drive, but it can not be used to bring the laptop out of sleep, backup and put it back to sleep, which Acronis did fine. Now I am having other problems with Ghost. I just seem to have swapped problems!

Looks like I use Ghost and manual backup on the laptop, and re-install Acronis on this PC. I would have prefered to use the same program on both. But it looks like they both have different advantages and disadvantages. Maybe there is still a perfect program out there somewhere?
 
 
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