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DPM 2022 - Consistency check on initial sync of large data source

CCDanC 10 Reputation points
2024-05-20T15:26:14.95+00:00

We are using DPM to back up a large share on one of our file servers: ~12 TB, 21m+ files. This one always gives us headaches to back up via DPM and often becomes inconsistent.

We have built a new DPM server (DPM 2022), and have begun a new backup of the share. DPM was making good progress, having downloaded at least several TBs of data (at least according to the "Data Transferred" indicator), but then ran into a problem and began a consistency check of the data.

This consistency check has been running for 18 days. The number of items scanned exceeds the total number of files in the share by roughly 10 times.

I am used to this share taking extreme amounts of time to sync, and am hesitant to cancel the job and try again, if it's "almost done". Is there a particular logfile entry that I could check to determine the status of this consistency check? I've skimmed through the various *.errlogs in the Temp folder, but nothing's jumping out at me. Thank you.

Microsoft System Center
Microsoft System Center
A suite of Microsoft systems management products that offer solutions for managing datacenter resources, private clouds, and client devices.
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  1. XinGuo-MSFT 15,166 Reputation points
    2024-05-21T08:55:41.0566667+00:00

    Hi,

    I understand your concern about the lengthy consistency check on your large data source. It’s indeed a challenging situation when dealing with such a large amount of data.

    System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) logs its activity in log files (*.errlog). These log files are tab delimited and can be opened in Excel for easy viewing. You can filter with specific levels and task IDs to find events that interest you.

    The log files are located as follows:

    • DPM installation information: Logged on the DPM server at %ProgramFiles%\\Microsoft System Center\\DPM\\DPMLogs.
    • DPM activity information: Logged on the DPM server at %ProgramFiles%\\Microsoft System Center\\DPM\\DPM\\Temp.
    • Protected client activity: Logged on the client computer at %ProgramFiles%\\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\\DPM\\Temp Logs.

    You can tweak log file settings as follows:

    • TraceLogLevel DWORD: Specifies the logging level. Can be overridden per binary.
    • TraceLogPath REG_SZ: Specifies the log location. Requires a valid NTFS volume path with 3 GB of compressed space on DPM server.
    • <binary> TraceLogMaxSize DWORD: Specifies the size of the log file in Bytes.
    • <binary>TraceLogMaxNumber DWORD: Maximum number of log files to retain.

    You can also enable full Verbose logging but remember that this affects performance. If you need this for a limited time, do the following:

    1. In the registry, at HKLM\\Software\\Microsoft\\Microsoft Data Protection Manager, add a DWORD value TraceLogLevel and set it to 0x43e.
    2. To apply immediately, stop the DPM services for which you want to enable verbose logging and delete the old logs.
    3. After you reproduce the issue and finish troubleshooting, delete the registry entry you created, and restart the stopped services so that non-verbose logging works again.

    I hope this information helps you in troubleshooting the issue. Good luck! 😊