Backup Copy Job Size on Disk Larger than Backup Job

[kslaught21]

Just a general question - we've noticed that there is a fairly large size discrepancy on disk (around 100 GB) between our backup job and our backup copy job. The backup copy job was set up to process from the backup job. Same number of restore points, compression level on the backup copy job is set to Auto, on the backup job it is set to Optimal. Wondering if this is normal behavior or not, and if not what to look for to make sure there aren't any stale restore points or anything on the target end.

I should also mention this is in a Cloud Connect infrastructure using WAN Accelerators if that makes a difference.

Thanks!

[foggy]

Kyle, what backup method is being used by the source backup job?

[kslaught21]

Sorry, forgot to put that in there. The source job is using Incremental.

[foggy]

I suspect that the reason is in the fact that backup copy maintains a single full where the oldest increment is being merged into and which keeps growing in logical size, while with forward incremental method the source backup job periodically creates new full backup file copying only required blocks. Backup copy does not just copy files, but rather synthetically creates required restore points in target location from VM data in source backup repositories, so the size should not match.

[kslaught21]

Thanks Foggy, so you think ~ 500 GB on the copy job vs ~ 400 GB on the backup job could be considered normal behavior?

[foggy]

I admit this is possible and mentioned one of the reasons. Hard to guess what is the reason in your case without taking a look at you jobs and files, you can ask for a short webex session with support to review this.