Explain space usage on sql restore

[backupquestions]

Here is the scenario. Story of 3 servers... veeam server.. production sql server... and sql staging server...

Veeam is physical and the other two are virtual. Staging server is properly configured and works fine.

I am seeing that when I restore a database even a tiny one, back to the production SQL servers that I am getting alerts from our monitoring software that the c drive on the production sql server is at 99 percent full.

I investigated and find that during restore veeam mounts a FLR folder to the c drive of the production sql server and fills it up.

Why does this happen? Is it a concern or is it not really full since the data is just mounted and not really existing on the c drive?

I thought the data should be mounted to the staging server c drive maybe, and not to the production sql server.

I can't have a sql server go down due to fake filling of c drive. The thing is, it has like 80gb free at all times outside of the restore, and the restore itself is a tiny 4gb database.

So just looking for full explanation of what happens behind the scenes on this process and if I need to worry or give tons of space on c of production sql knowing that it is wasted 24/7 outside of veeam restore periods of 5 min.

[Gostev]

You've almost answered your own question. Indeed, VeeamFLR folder is virtual (files inside are emulated and their content is provided on access), so this folder doesn't actually consume any physical disk space.

So, unless something else actually does overfill your drive, then you shouldn't worry about these false alarms. It would appear as if your monitoring software measures used disk space in some weird way - by summing up size of all files on disk, rather than actually querying free physical disk space? Although I'm not sure why would they do this. Perhaps you should check directly with the vendor.

[backupquestions]

The monitoring software is literally Vmware's own vRealize Operations Manager product. I did notice that it spelled out "c:\veeamflr/jibberishvolumeetc" as what was full, so I wondered if it is somehow counting the "mounted volume" itself as what was full and not saying the C was, not sure. But either way, I'm glad to hear it isn't really consuming the physical disk space.

Thanks for the reply Gostev! Hope you are still enjoying your vacation somewhere for the most part lol.

[stephanie.gillespie]

I'm having the same issue but its causing the SharePoint Restore to fail and time out (Size of restore is about 950GB)
Is there any way of redirecting this mount to a different drive rather than C?

I've logged a support call: 03961607

[foggy]

What particular type of SharePoint restore scenario is it (restore/export/save...)? Is the same server used as a staging SQL Server by any chance? As mentioned above, VeeamFLR folder itself shouldn't consume space, it's just a mount point for disks from a backup file. Please ask your support engineer to verify where space is actually consumed.