Backing Up Data › Backup Staging Methods › How Backup to Disk to Tape Works › How to Configure Arcserve Backup to Perform Disk Staging Backups

How to Configure Arcserve Backup to Perform Disk Staging Backups

If you plan to back up your data to disk, the best practice is to use disk staging, rather than backing up data to a file system device (FSD). Disk staging lets you do the following:

• Back up to disk and then copy the data to two final destinations simultaneously (Double Tape Copy) and delete the data on the staging device by creating staging groups.

  To ensure that the migration job continues when one of the devices become unavailable, you can set a timeout value for additional backup media to continue the migration job in another device. If you do not set a timeout value, then the data migration job fails after the first backup media timeout completes. For more details about setting the timeout value, see Backup Manager Backup Media Options.

• Create flexible policies that determine when you want to copy and delete data.
• Reduce the backup window when a single job breaks into multiple simultaneous streams while writing to a disk staging area. The number of simultaneous streams can be controlled according to your disk network throughput capabilities.

Before you can back up data using disk staging, you must perform the following tasks:

• Create the staging devices. First, you must specify the devices in your environment that you will use for staging operations.

  Important! Staging backup operations can quickly consume a large amount of free disk space on FSDs. Due to the maximum file size limitations of FAT 16 and FAT 32 file systems, you should not use these file systems on FSDs designated for staging operations.

• Configure the staging groups. After specifying the devices in your environment, you must configure the device group to function as a staging group.
• Configure the staging policies. To perform backup operations using staging, you must define the copy and purge policies that Arcserve Backup will use to manage data stored on staging devices.

The following sections provide you with information about how to configure Arcserve Backup to perform staging backups.

More information:

Configure Device Groups to Use Staging

Specify Staging Groups Settings

Specify Copy and Purge Policies for Disk Staging Backups

Specify Miscellaneous Options for Disk Staging Backups

Specify Postscripts Options for Disk and Tape Staging Backups