Help- for exchange07 backup

[sfc2113]

Let me start by saying this is the best and easiest backup software for vmware I have ever seen. But....


I have an exchange 2007 server, (vm) it is currently failing backup due to no room for the snapshot on the datastore.
Current disk space used on the vm is about 200gb used in mailboxes/public folders with about 500gb san allocated to the 3 virtual disks. The virtual disks are on the same san.
I am getting a snapshot error that says I do not have enough room on my data-store,
I moved a bunch of systems off that san and now have over 500gb of free space on the san that houses the eschange server vm, but it is still failing?????

I dont have the option of putting the snapshot files somewhere else as the san this server is on now has the most free space. And telling my company I need another expensive fiber san box so I can do backups? when I just talked them into spending big $$$ on this software to get off the slow tape method wont help me either.

Is there a way to get a backup without taking a snapshot? or can I exclude one of the disks say the disk that say stores the public folders (200gb) and back that disk up separate in another job . Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[foggy]

I am getting a snapshot error that says I do not have enough room on my data-store

Can you take the snapshot manually, using vSphere Client? Please review the VMware KB 1012384 where required snapshot space overhead is documented.

For example, for a VMFS3 volume with 1MB block size snapshot overhead is 2GB, meaning that VMDK size cannot be larger than 254GB for the snapshot to be taken.

Is there a way to get a backup without taking a snapshot? or can I exclude one of the disks say the disk that say stores the public folders (200gb) and back that disk up separate in another job .

It is not possible to backup a VM without snapshotting it. You can exclude the disk from the backup job, but if the issue is in the VMDK maximum size, as I described above, you still will not be able to backup it in another job with the current configuration.

[sfc2113]

Ok so my virtual disks on the exchange vm are

80gb ( os / system)

250gb for logs and public folder database

256gb for Mailbox db


My 1.6tb datastore has a max of 256 gb partition size and a 1mb block size.


So your telling me I have to have at lease 586gb of free space on the san? Or do I have to reduce the size of the one virtual disk to 250gb.

[foggy]

So your telling me I have to have at lease 586gb of free space on the san? Or do I have to reduce the size of the one virtual disk to 250gb.

The second.

[sfc2113]

so then this should work:

Create new 200gb partition in vmware on the exchange vm server

On the exchange server move all the mailbox database files from the 256 gb drive to the 200 gb drive.


Delete the 256 gb partition and drive from vmware, Run backup.

[foggy]

Yes, this should work.