Best Practices for Archiving

Update File Access Time

Applies to: File System

The file access time update is disabled by default on Microsoft Windows Vista and later. In order for the file access time to be updated, verify that the RefsDisableLastAccessUpdate key is added to the Microsoft Registry Editor using the following steps.

1. Log into the computer on which you want to add the registry key.

2. From the Start menu, type Run.

3. Type Regedit in the Run dialog box.

4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem.

5. Right-click, and then click New | DWORD (32-bit) value.

6. Type the name, RefsDisableLastAccessUpdate.

7. Type 0 to enable the key.

   Type a number higher than zero to disable the key.

8. If you disable the key, restart your computer.

For more information, refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff469400.aspx

Check for Dangling Stubs Regularly

Run the Verify Archiver Tool at regular intervals to check for dangling stubs. The Verify Archiver tool validates the stubs on the source disk against the data stored in the secondary storage, and reports the discrepancies for appropriate action. For example, if there are stubs on the source disk with no corresponding data in the secondary storage, such stubs are considered as dangling stubs and might need further investigation.

For more information, see Verify Archiver Tool.

Configuring Retention Criteria On Storage Policy for Archiving Subclients

We recommend that you use a deduplication-enabled storage policy for archiving and set the Primary Storage Copy retention to 2 cycles in the Copy Properties| Retention dialog box. Additionally, this ensures that you have two backup copies of each file and the data backed up prior to these two cycles is pruned from the media.

To prevent data loss due to media failure, create a secondary copy of your backed up or archived data on alternate media. Set a longer retention period for the backed up or archived data that resides on the alternate media.

Exclude gxhsmcache Folder from Subclient Content

We recommend you to exclude gxhsmcache folder from the subclient content to prevent issues from occurring during backups.

Exclude IP Addresses To Prevent Stub Recall

In certain situations, you might want to prevent some computers from triggering a stub recall on the CIFS share. For example, when you have an antivirus(AV) software installed on the computer, stub recall operations are triggered automatically when the AV software scans the files.

To prevent stub recall, to the client computer create the IPADDRTOEXCLUDERECALLSFORFPOLICY additional setting as shown in the following table.

For instructions on adding the additional settings from the CommCell Console, see Adding or Modifying Additional Settings from the CommCell Console.

Fpolicy Server

For each NetApp file server, we recommend that:

• you use a separate Windows proxy computer that can serve as an Fpolicy server

• the Windows proxy computer is a physical computer with a minimum configuration of six core processor and 32 GB of RAM.

To prevent communication pipe congestion and recall failures, make sure that the maximum number of recalls per second is five. If you want to perform more than five recalls per second, we recommend that you split the shares across other vfilers.

Running Auxiliary Copy Job

We recommend that you perform an auxiliary copy operation to replicate data from the primary copy to a secondary copy. For instructions on performing auxiliary copy, see Performing an Auxiliary Copy.

Deleting an Archiving Client

For user authentication before deleting an archiving client, you must download, and then run the DeleteClientAuthorization workflow from the Commvault Store. The workflow sends an authorization email to the user. The client will be processed for deletion only when the user approves the request. For more information on how to use workflows, see Workflow Overview.