Reformatting Hardened Linux volume where immutable backups are stored

[Inphosys]

Greetings all -

I have a self inflicted "whoops!" due to a misconfiguration in the job that writes to my hardened Linux server where my immutable backups are stored and I've used all of my available storage space. I figure the easiest way to fix the problem is to reformat the volume where the backup data is written and start over. Reformatting is OK with me because I have all of this data safely stored in another repository.

My setup:
I followed this article pretty much to the letter... https://www.veeam.com/blog/installing-u ... itory.html

I have a standalone Dell PowerEdge server with a dedicated PERC for the storage subsystem.

My first Virtual Disk (VD 0) is a pair of SSDs in a RAID 1 and shows up as /sda in Linux for the Ubuntu OS, Veeam binaries, and where /home, /var, /tmp, etc. are located.

My second Virtual Disk (VD 1) is ten, really large HDDs in a RAID 6 and identifies in Ubuntu as /sdb.

I used the storage configuration wizard during the Ubuntu installation process to make the required GPT partitions and format them with ext4 file system on VD 0 /sda and also to make the GPT partition and xfs file system on VD 1 /sdb mounted as /mnt/backup.

After I reboot Linux into single user mode to regain root / sudo access, what commands would I execute to completely reformat /sdb, recreate the GPT partition, format it xfs and remount it as /mnt/backup?

Also, if you have any insight into the following I'd really appreciate your input...

1. I'm not using pools like I've seen mentioned in other articles, should I be?

2. Is this configuration providing me with the best storage utilization as far as compression / data deduplication?

Thank you for sharing your expertise.

[Inphosys]

Anybody? Would at least enjoy some discussion regarding the bottom 2 questions.

[SAFA_IT]

You could perhaps just delete the files rather than reformatting.
veeam-backup-replication-f2/how-to-dele ... 89400.html

[Mildur]

1. I'm not using pools like I've seen mentioned in other articles, should I be?

Personally I like to keep it simple and never use LVMs. Others may have different opportunities here. If you want more flexibility for managing the volumes then LVM can surely be helpful.

2. Is this configuration providing me with the best storage utilization as far as compression / data deduplication?

Yes, XFS brings you the best compression/deduplication for our product.
Just make sure to create your filesystem as documented in our user guide:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... positories

Example, if your partition is /dev/sdb1:

Code: Select all

mkfs.xfs -b size=4096 -m reflink=1,crc=1 /dev/sdb1

Best,
Fabian