When backing up a virtual disk for a virtual machine, you can choose to skip the backup of the Windows page file or Linux swap partition. Use this option to reduce the size of backups for the virtual disk on storage media.
This feature supports only streaming backups and backup copy operations for VMware. It is enabled by default.
Page or swap files are still displayed when browsing a backup that skipped them, because they are part of the metadata that is displayed for the file system. The restored page or swap file size from backups varies depending on the extents that are shared between the page or swap file and other files.
Before You Begin
To skip page and swap files during backups, you must install VMware Tools on the guest VMs.
Procedure
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To disable/enable this feature, on the proxy that has the Virtual Server Agent (VSA) installed, add the bSkipPageFileExtent additional setting.
For instructions on adding the additional setting from the CommCell Console, see Adding or Modifying Additional Settings from the CommCell Console.
Refer to the following table for applicable values:
Property |
Value |
---|---|
Name |
|
Category |
VirtualServer |
Type |
Boolean |
Value |
Select one of the following values:
|
Note
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Skipping page file sectors during backup is not supported if the page file resides on striped volumes or dynamic disks configured with software RAID 5.
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Skipping swap partitions during backup operations is not supported if the swap partition resides on a thin logical volume or on a Linux Logical Volume Manager (LVM) and distributed to multiple disks.