Bloated full vbk file [Case #00995292]

[ori]

Hi,
v8 U2,
I am backing up to a Data Domain through FC using the forever forward incremental method.
Few days ago, the merge operation for some of my jobs was interrupted because of an infrastructure issue, what caused the full backup file to grow tremendously. For one job it has grown from 7 tb to 35 tb, for another from 28 tb to 70 tb.

What would be the most efficient way to fix this?

[Shestakov]

Hi Ori,
First we need to find out what caused the described behavior.
What kind of infrastructure issue did you get? Have you done any full backups after that, what are their sizes?
Thanks!

[NightBird]

Little question

Why did you choose forever incremental with a datadomain ?
It seems crazy for me
Why not incremental with active full (and ddboost inside) ?

[ori]

Hi Nikita,
The infrastructure issue was that the gateway server (essentially the Veeam proxy, that is also fiber connected to the Data Domain) has disconnected from the Data Domain device while three of my jobs were in the Merge phase.
Now, it is clearly seen that the backup file size has been tripled as a result of this disconnection - I can see it in the Veeam ONE report - "Backup Files Growth" - the growth happened on the same time for these three jobs.
I didn't do full backups after that. I suppose that an active full will solve it, I just wanted to know if it would be the best way to handle it.

Hi NightBird,
Forever incremental works pretty good with my Data Domain. It is using ddboost, and every run the earliest point is merging with the full backup file - the Virtual Synthetics feature suppose to do it quite efficiently. I am not aware of any recommendation against using this method with Data Domain, but I would be glad to know if there is one..