VCB & Exchange Backups

[UoGsys]

Hi, we're in the process of building an exchange 2010 mailbox server in a VSphere cluster. The server will be hosting around 3200 mailboxes, each 2GB in size, spread across 7 DB's.

Each of these DB's will be on its own LUN (on a HP EVA6400), ranging from 1.1TB to 1.7TB in size.

If we were to perform a VCB backup on this server my understanding is that the server is put in snapshot mode and during that time extra space will be needed on each LUN for any changes made to the disks and I am trying to find a rough figure for how much extra space to allocate - does anyone have a rough idea of the level of space required or advice on how to calculate this?

[DaveConverySHI]

With snapshots, the amount of space needed would be based on the estimated amount of data written during the expected copy time for a FullVM backup.

HOWEVER...It is NOT a good idea to back up transactional systems with VCB. The VSS providers and sync drivers do not play nice with SQL or Exchange. I usually recommend using it to only back up the system and use an agent to back up the mail/database/transactional data.

Dave Convery, VCDX

VMware vExpert 2009

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"