using hard links to integrate with Backup Exec

[jpeake]

I've been using Veeam in production for about a month now. Now I want to use our existing autoloader and Backup Exec to do some long term archiving.

I am thinking about creating a folder on the repo server, and writing a script to hard link the most recent full backup in each job and using Backup exec to backup that directory containing the hard links. BUE seems to follow hard links with no problems.

I would run my archiving job once a month, and get the most recent full to tape.

Am i over-thinking this? Does this sound reasonable?

[tsightler]

Actually, I've used the "hard link" approach for archives on both Linux, Windows, and even dedupe based repos for quite some time, it should work well. I'm assuming you are using forward incremental?

[jpeake]

Here is my script. Seems to work well. I created a folder for the links to live, and have BackupExec just point at those. Seems to work fine. Had to add a little delay to delete the old links.

Code: Select all

@echo off

::Backup_Root should be set to the parent folder for your Veeam jobs
::BUE_Root should be set to the folder you will be backing up with Backup Exec (WARNING - DO NOT USE THE SAME FOLDER AS YOUR VEEAM BACKUPS)
	SET Backup_Root=M:\Backups\
	SET BUE_Root=M:\BackupExec_Links\
::Deletes existing links
	del %BUE_Root%*.vbk
::Use PING to delay execution of following lines if needed
	ping 127.0.0.1 -n 3
::Loop through each job folder, create hard link to newest VBK in the BUE_Root folder
	FOR /F "delims=~" %%F in ('dir /b "%Backup_Root%"') DO (
		FOR /F "delims=~" %%L in ('DIR /b /O-D "%Backup_Root%%%F\*.vbk"') DO (
			mklink /H "%BUE_Root%%%F.vbk" "%Backup_Root%%%F\%%L")
		)