Hi Wanda

Not sure if you've told us the size of these machines, but like someone 
described, image backups or even better, FastBack VSS backups would be a 
solution.

With FastBack, there's no fileinspection in the way TSM does it, so the amount 
of files wouldnt be an issue. Restores would also be alot faster since you have 
a) No work putting togheter the list of files to be restored b) FastBack 
Instant Restore. This would solve both your issues with backing the systems up, 
but primarily, the time needed to restore them.

The only down-side with FastBack would be that there is a limit on how big the 
server you're backing up can be. With previous versions of FastBack, I think 
the repository limit was 40TB. To calculate how big your repository needs to 
be, you calculate the size of your server(s) with 4. If this size exceeds the 
repository size of 40TB, you might have an issue using FB. Not sure if the 
maximum repository size changed with 6.1.3.0, couldnt find any info about it in 
the release notes.

Since FastBack uses disk to store repository data, you would need quite some 
diskspace attached to the FB server, but I guess you could bring the amount 
needed down to a minimum by using de-dup on the FastBack repository. Only 
down-side with de-duping is you will need the extra RAM & CPU power to handle 
de-dup on the FB server.

Best Regards

Daniel Sparrman

-----"ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU> skrev: -----


Till: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Från: "Prather, Wanda" <wPrather AT ICFI DOT COM>
Sänt av: "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
Datum: 03/01/2011 01:28
Ärende: Re: Ang: Windows servers with a kazillion files and Win2K8...

Two tiny questions:

>>a) Do the users need instant access to the files or is long-term archiving an 
>>option?

Unfortunately, the app that creates the files distributes them across the LUNS, 
and they are indexed in a giant SQL data base.  The files can't be removed from 
their original location.

>>b) Not sure if it would help the issue with long respons times when browsing, 
>>but HSM might be an option?

HSM leaves a stub file, so there would be even MORE files on each LUN!  Our 
problem isn't the size of the LUNS, it's the number of files in the Windows 
directory.

>>Your biggest problem isnt now, it's when u need to restore those 70 million 
>>files. 

I agree completely!

Till: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Från: "Prather, Wanda" <wPrather AT ICFI DOT COM> Sänt av: "ADSM: Dist Stor 
Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
Datum: 02/25/2011 20:03
Ärende: Windows servers with a kazillion files and Win2K8...

I have a site with an application that generates kazillions of tiny files that 
are stored forever.
I've already yelled about it, but it's a purchased, customer-facing black-box 
app that they really can't change.
(Naturally, when it was bought umpty years ago, nobody thought about the 
problem reaching this size or what the ramifications would be.)  Every day the 
app creates more files.

They have multiple Win2K3 servers that already have multiple luns containing 
over 35M files each, one is over 75M files.

We are using journaling to back them up successfully (most days).
But it's a struggle just to expand the file tree with Windows explorer, and 
there are exposures on the days when the journal gets overrun (takes 72 hours 
for TSM to scan the filesystem and revalidate the journal).

Looking for anything that might help save our bacon.

Has anybody had experience with this issue and Win2K8?
Does Win2K8 do any better than Win2K3 at handling huge numbers of files in 1 
NTFS directory?
Upgrading the OS is something application-independent we might be able to do.

Thanks for any insight!
W


Wanda Prather  |  Senior Technical Specialist  | wprather AT icfi DOT 
com<mailto:wprather AT icfi DOT com>  |  www.jasi.com<www.jasi.com%20> ICF 
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