Discussions related to exporting backups to tape and backing up directly to tape.
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DataDefender
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File-to-Repository and then Backup-to-Tape vs. Files-to-Tape

Post by DataDefender »

Good morning dear data hoarders,

Is there a difference in how Veeam writes data to tapes depending on the source?
When I first back up files with Fileserver-Backup or Fileshare-Backup to a repository, for example, I can set the compression ratio (which I cannot set in a File-to-Tape job).
If I now write the repository to tape using a Backup-to-Tape job, will the repository be written to tape, or will the files be rehydrated and written to tape as it would have been if I had used a Files-to-Tape job in the first place?

The goal is to utilize Veeam's data compression capabilities and not rely on LTO hardware compression. Single item restore is needed for this job, so I cannot just make a Volume level Backup and write that to tape, as it would require restoring the complete VBK file first.

Thanks in advance,
DD
Dima P.
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Re: File-to-Repository and then Backup-to-Tape vs. Files-to-Tape

Post by Dima P. »

Hello DataDefender,

From the low level functionality perspective backup to tape is a file to tape fine-tuned to write big files, so you can expect more or less the same performance from both file to tape and backup to tape when working with a similar vbk file.
The goal is to utilize Veeam's data compression capabilities and not rely on LTO hardware compression.
Can you please elaborate why? Tape hardware compression is simply amazing and causes zero impact on tape out performance.
Single item restore is needed for this job, so I cannot just make a Volume level Backup and write that to tape, as it would require restoring the complete VBK file first.
You can restore single VM from tape directly to infrastructure, just saying :wink:
DataDefender
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Re: File-to-Repository and then Backup-to-Tape vs. Files-to-Tape

Post by DataDefender »

Hi Dima,

Thanks for your feedback. Regarding compression, in my test cases, Veeam compression performed better at compressing data than LTO hardware compression. However, I will give it another try and write the same data to tape as Files-to-Tape and then as File-to-Repo-to-Tape to compare the results.

I am not attempting to write VMs to tape in this scenario. I am testing Veeam's capabilities in archiving our old production data (lots of files) :-)

Best,
DD
Dima P.
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Re: File-to-Repository and then Backup-to-Tape vs. Files-to-Tape

Post by Dima P. »

Thanks for your feedback. Regarding compression, in my test cases, Veeam compression performed better at compressing data than LTO hardware compression.
What LTO drive / LTO media generation was used in your tests?
However, I will give it another try and write the same data to tape as Files-to-Tape and then as File-to-Repo-to-Tape to compare the results.
You can take a VM backup from one Windows machine and use backup to tape with hardware compression on and then configure file to tape from the same machine selecting volumes as a source. That should be somewhat accurate in terms of data source capacity.
I am not attempting to write VMs to tape in this scenario. I am testing Veeam's capabilities in archiving our old production data (lots of files) :-)
Aha, understood. I would think of restore capabilities then: if production data is VMs - you can do backup to tape (this would give you direct vm restore from tape to your infrastructure); if files and you would need single file recovery - for sure got with file to tape jobs.
DataDefender
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Re: File-to-Repository and then Backup-to-Tape vs. Files-to-Tape

Post by DataDefender »

Conclusion of my little experiment: I will stick with Files-to-Tape :-)

Source data: ~9.7TB
Repo after Files to Repo Backup Job with high compression: ~6.6TB

Spaced used on tapes after Files-to-Tape Job: ~7.5TB
Spaced used on tapes after Backup-to-Tape Job: ~9.8TB

Backup-to-Tape consumes much more tape space, don't know why, and also it's just another extra step that is not really required on archiving old data on tapes.

Best,
DD
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