Backup of Empty Folder - Case 03119826

[mhussain]

Please add Feature Or release a new version of Veeam Backup and replication so I can take a take a backup of the empty folder.

The empty directories are excluded when running a file-to-tape job. I don't know if this is a bug or by design or if I am missing an option, but we would really like to have a way to have them included to be able to guarantee a 100% identical copy of the directory structure to our users.


Case 03119826

[Mike Resseler]

Hi MHussain,

First: Welcome to the forums!
Before I pass this message to the responsible PM, can you tell me what exactly is happening. You have selected a root directory containing X amount of folders and Y amount of those folders (and subfolders) have files in it... There are some folders who are empty and those are not seen on the tape? Is that correct?

[Dima P.]

Hello mhussain.

The empty directories are excluded when running a file-to-tape job.

That's true - file to tape jobs operate on the file level, so if the folder is empty - it's going to be skipped from processing. I noted a feature requested based on your post, so thanks for sharing!

[mhussain]

Essentially we have a directory structure containing evidence, which has lots of subdirectories in, some with files and some without. When we try to do a file to tape backup job, Veeam seems only to be backing up the directories where files are present and excluding those empty directories. As this directory structure is evidence is important to back up everything including the empty directories.

That's why I have requested for the feature so we can backup of the empty folders when we perform file-to-tape backup

[blim]

I would like file-to-tape jobs to backup empty folders. A checkbox or something would be nice.

Thanks!

[Dima P.]

Hello blim,

Can you please clarify your use case? Thank you in advance!

[blim]

I would like to use file-to-tape jobs to backup certain drives that are >4TB in size (about 400TB of data altogether). These drives could have a folder structure created by an application or a user. If a full restore is required and empty folders aren't restored it could mean applications can't find directories that should be there or users have to take time to rebuilt their directory structure.

[Dima P.]

Hello blim,

Thanks for the details, consider your vote being added to this feature request!

[Samba222]

Vote +1

[rjay1600]

I have had the same issue, a standard "directory structure" that may or may not have files in some directories. Veeam have verified that 9.5x File to Tape only backs up files.
We have a requirement to do a "test restore" from tapes sent offfsite. This VM(and it's data) is several TB in size so a "test restore" from a tape backup job requires restoring the whole VM to a disk repository, unfortunately this is the only way to maintain the integrity of the directory structure.

Two things would be nice.

1. - for File to Tape, backup ALL the data, including all directories ( is a directory not a file ? )
2. - have Backup to Tape write some sort of "metadata" to tape about the repository structure being copied to tape, to ( somehow ) allow single files ( or alternatively, single VMs ) to be extracted from the tape without the need to restore the whole repository

[Dima P.]

Hello Ray,

Thank you for sharing, I'll discuss your feedback with the team!

[erottier]

I have the same issue.

Last restore test from a NAS file-to-tape job I was wondering why I could only see a few folders. When I went to check I could only see the folders which had files in them.
If some weird process is expecting a(n) (empty) folder, I would need this in a real restore case!

My version is yet 9.5 Update 4. No 10 as of yet, so maybe this is in v10 already? Since the new NAS features?

Kind regards.

[Samba222]

The right feature-request here should be more not fiddling around with File2Tape but further develop the NAS-Backup which should work as NAS-Backup to Disk to Tape.
Like in many other threads: these File2Tape is painfully slow, has again its own db for indexing,does not coresspond with NAS-Backup Jobs, has no disk-buffer and so on...

Regards,
Ronald

[Dima P.]

Hello Ronald,

Completely agree with you and that's our long-term plan. For the short-term we are going to implement more optimizations to file to tape engine. As for the empty folder backup that's being discussed. Thanks for the feedback!

[spicorr]

Was this ever implemented? It's almost 5 years later and still waiting...?

[HannesK]

Hello,
what do you mean with "still waiting"?

Backing up empty folders works fine with file to tape. What is your support case number, as it seems to be not working for you?

Best regards,
hannes

[spicorr]

Hi HannesK,

I haven't logged a support case, I just had the same thing happen and this thread was the only similar thing I could find. If this has been implemented, then great. Does it back up empty folders by default or do you need to select an option? I will try again and if it still happens, I'll log a support case.

Regards,
Charlie

[blim]

I upvoted this feature in the past. I would like to note that the tooltip for creating files-to-tape jobs says, "Creates a new job for archiving files and folders to tape." This is not accurate as empty folders are not backed up.

[HannesK]

Hello,
I did not configure anything special. It just worked in V12

Best regards,
Hannes