We write our backup data to a SAM/QFS filesystem. All the legato
installation is on the local drives. All data that is backed up goes to
QFS. This is what is doing the writing of our tapes. Legato never sees
the tapes. So to answer  your question yes our backup data is written to
QFS. We are working with Sun/EMC on this at the moment. Just was curious
to see if there was a quick and easy way to clean up the disk space.
Thanks for your suggestions on this matter. Any help is greatly
appreciated. 

Matt Powell
Storage Administrator
Clemson University
office : 865-656-0589
cell: 864-650-8237


-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU] On
Behalf Of A Darren Dunham
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 1:35 PM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [Networker] Removal of older save sets

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 01:22:37PM -0400, Matthew Powell wrote:
> We are currently writing our legato files to a SAM/QFS file system.

You mean the Networker database, not the backup data itself, right?

> This
> means that as soon as legato writes to this directory SAM/QFS will
grab
> it and make two tape copies. So in our instance legato will see no
tape.
> Just an endless pool of disk. This takes out the whole process of
> cloning tapes to another library. We automatically get two copies on
the
> first write. What I am trying to do is to have Legato purge the
expired
> save sets and clear the space from disk.

The bulk of the data is in the "file" database, and that is erased as
soon as the browse period expires (or close to it .. runing nsrim -X
will help compress things as well).

A small part of the data is in the media database which tracks what's on
the tapes.  It's normally purged when the volume is recycled/relabeled.
You can purge it earlier, but it's pretty small, so you don't get much
space for doing it early.

> If the physical disks get full
> then all disk space is reclaimed because I have two copies of all data
> on tape. It can get the data from the tape by way of an inode pointer
> file. It tells the physical disk this is the location of the file. So
I
> just want to know if there is a way for Legato to clean up the old
save
> sets that have been expired.

If it's exipired, then the file database has already been purged and
only a little bit of data about the tape usage remains.

> This in turn will clear the data from the
> tape or at least mark it for removal so when QFS needs another tape it
> can just overwrite that tape b/c all media is expired. Do I need to
> explain any more on this or does this make sense? Thanks.

I'm still not certain if you're talking about the Networker databases
(stuff in /nsr on the server), or if you're talking about the backup
data from the clients.

--
Darren

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