I'm glad you posted this as I have the same problem with this idiotic
repetative backup of unchanged objects. It has driven my TSM server to its
knees.  Since I hadn't seen other postings, I thought I had a unique problem
with my database.

On Fri, 1 Jun 2001, Prather, Wanda wrote:

> I have run into some ugly issues with the Win2K backup of the "SYSTEM
> OBJECT".
>
> I'm throwing the information out here to warn other people what to expect,
> and hopefully to get the developers to reconsider the current
> implementation.
>
> The SYSTEM FILES component of the "SYSTEM OBJECT"  on Win2K consists of over
> 1500 .dll and .exe and .obj files from (mostly) the WinNT/system32
> directory.  These files are backed up EVERY TIME an incremental is run, even
> though THE DATA HAS NOT CHANGED.
>
> We have converted over 200 NT desktops to WIn2K PRO.  For each of our Win2K
> PRO systems, this adds 1586 files to the backup every night.
>
> This has had an enormous impact on the TSM server.  The additional data is
> only about 20 GB per night, and that's not a big problem.  But each of the
> SYSTEM FILES still has it's own entry in the TSM data base.
>
> You do the math:  That's over 300,000 additional objects that get added AND
> deactivated each day, which for me means an additional 2.5 HOURS of EXPIRE
> INVENTORY time is needed DAILY.  And all for data THAT HAS NOT CHANGED.
>
> TSM's strength has always been that it DOESN"T back up unchanged data.
> Well, at least it didn't used to...
>
> My problem here is we have another 250 machines to convert from NT to WIn2K.
> They aren't about to buy me a second TSM server to handle the load, when the
> current one worked fine for backing up the same number of NT systems with
> the same amount of user data.  Instead they are looking at some Windows-only
> software to back up the WIndows side of the house.
>
> It appears to me the current TSM implementation is flawed, and will inhibit
> other people's ability to support large Windows environments as well as
> ours.
>
> I put this information into the Requirements for the Oxford Symposium,
> hopefully it will give some additional visibility to the issue.
>
> Any suggestions welcome ....but don't suggest we give up our ability to do
> full bare-metal restores.
> Management will change the backup software first.
>
> ************************************************************************
> Wanda Prather
> The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
> 443-778-8769
> wanda_prather AT jhuapl DOT edu
>
> "Intelligence has much less practical application than you'd think" -
> Scott Adams/Dilbert
> ************************************************************************
>