Can I move the workspace to another drive?

christine.cheneychristine.cheney Posts: 5
edited October 24, 2011 3:24AM in SQL Backup Previous Versions
We have a scenario where the databases on server A are being encrypted and backed up directly to a location on server B using SQLBackup 6. However we are monitoring a lot of disk activity on the C drive of server A which we think is tied down to the backup process. Is there a configuration option in SQLBackup 6 which allows us to point it's workspace (which is what I am assuming is being used) to a different disk drive?
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  • Eddie DEddie D Posts: 1,803 Rose Gold 5
    Thank you for your post into the forum.

    I suspect you will need to look elsewhere for the activity on your server a c drive.

    SQL Backup performs the compression and encryption in memory via the Virtual Device Interface before writing the compressed and encrypted data to disk.

    The SQL Backup Local Data Store which is a SQL Server Compact Edition file used to cache the msdb database backup and restore histories, along with the SQL Backup Activity Log files by default are located on the server's C drive. However we have never had an incident where writing / reading from these files will cause a large amount of disk activity.

    What Windows OS is on your Server A?

    What exact version of SQL Backup are you using?

    Many Thanks
    Eddie
    Eddie Davis
    Senior Product Support Engineer
    Redgate Software Ltd
    Email: support@red-gate.com
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  • christine.cheneychristine.cheney Posts: 5
    We are using SQL Backup 6.4.0.56 running on Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition SP 2. The version of SQL is SQL Server 2005 SP2 CU10 Enterprise Edition.

    I have used processexplorer and can see that the backup processing is accessing
    Device\LanmanRedirector\ServerB\g$\backups\server_01.sqb

    This I think is the cause. Our backups should actually be going to a location on another server but I assume that they are being cached/queued into this local file first.
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  • peteypetey Posts: 2,358 New member
    You said that you were seeing a lot of activity on the C drive on server A, but the Process Explorer entry shows a mapping to Server B, to the g$\backups\ directory. It doesn't point to Server A.

    Could you please clarify?

    Thanks.
    Peter Yeoh
    SQL Backup Consultant Developer
    Associate, Yohz Software
    Beyond compression - SQL Backup goodies under the hood, updated for version 8
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  • christine.cheneychristine.cheney Posts: 5
    We've tracked it down to what we assume is windows buffering the data before passing it to the drive on the remote system. Looking at process explorer the activity is all around files named similar to that below
    Device\LanmanRedirector\ServerB\g$\backups\server_01.sqb

    So although we are trying to direct the backup to the remote system, good old windows does some buffering for us first on the local C drive.
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  • peteypetey Posts: 2,358 New member
    Have you tried using Process Monitor instead to determine the cause of the excessive disk I/O on the C drive? Process Monitor is more suited to monitoring disk activity.

    Thanks.
    Peter Yeoh
    SQL Backup Consultant Developer
    Associate, Yohz Software
    Beyond compression - SQL Backup goodies under the hood, updated for version 8
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  • christine.cheneychristine.cheney Posts: 5
    Yes - we can see that it is down to SQL Backup. Now we know what is causing the disk traffic we'll live with it - we were just a bit confused about activity on a drive that we expected to be reasonably quiet.
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