Level 1-9 backups help you maintain control over the number of volumes you use. A carefully thought-out backup strategy enables you to recover everything to disk with a minimum number of volumes. The fewer volumes you need to recover from a disk crash, the less time you must spend restoring the disk.
You can also control the size and time it takes to back up your data by using directives, which compress and eliminate unnecessary data from your backups. For example, you can use a directive that tells Backup to skip certain files or filesystems when performing a backup. For more information on directives, see "What Are Directives?" on page 107.

Index Management

Backup tracks the files it backs up in the client file indexes and the media database. The client file indexes keep track of the files that belong to a save set, and the media database tracks the name of the volume, the backup dates of the save sets on the volume, and the filesystems in each save set. Backup can automatically control the size of the client file indexes and media database according to the browse policies and retention policies you set. For more details about using browse and retention policies, see "How the Browse and Retention Policies Manage the Data Life Cycle" on page 100.

Index Size and Structure

The structure of the client file indexes avoids operating system restrictions on file size and allows the client file index for a single client to continue to grow. As the client file index grows, it splits into segments of 2 GB each. If you want to check the size of a client's file index, enter the nsrls -fcommand, for example:

# nsrls -f /nsr/index/clientname/db
The path in the example is the default path. To change the path where the index resides, change the value in the Index Path attribute in the details view of the Clients resource.

Solstice Backup 5.1 Administration Guide*April 1998

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