Question

How to backup a 200tb Windows Server


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Has anyone backed up a 200TB Windows server before?  If so, how did you do it? 

I can’t use VSS because it has a 64TB volume size limit. 

What are the other options? 


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Userlevel 4
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It has one drive letter but underneath it is really x2 100TB volumes.  Individually still breaches the 64TB VSS limit. 

As @Jmeixner stated, you can take bakup via multiple backup jobs.  You can use dikpart from windows and split the drives into smaller chunks  ( e.g. 4 * 50TB   or more) and then add each drive letter to different backup job with different backup timings. 

If I split up the volumes it’ll effect the user experience.  Instead of all their files being in one drive they’ll have to open different drives to get to different files. 

I’d be interested to hear if it is possible to split the volumes without losing the data.  I'm extremely doubtful that could be done but I wouldn’t have thought it is possible. 

Userlevel 7
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The simplest way to accomplish this is to backup directories distributed over several jobs…

But I think this is not what you want….

Userlevel 4
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The simplest way to accomplish this is to backup directories distributed over several jobs…

But I think this is not what you want….

No, this does not work. 

If you select just one small folder and put it in a job by itself this backup still won’t run. 

When the job starts Veeam will engage the VSS function on the Windows OS.  Because the disk is bigger than 64TB the VSS function won’t start.  At this point the Veeam job will fail. 

Veeam uses VSS whether it is a folder or a volume backup.  

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