Exclude USB Attached Drives - Windows File System agent

Question

We are in the process of learning how to use Avamar and one of the "rules of thumb" we were taught was to make as few datasets as possible for ease of management, keeping that in mind, this is my question. Can we set an option/exclusion that will always skip USB attached storage? We have some windows servers with large USB drives attached that are used simply for archival and quick retrieval of various files, but these files never need to be backed up. There is an option in the Windows File System agent "do not traverse any mounts" which I tried, it doesn't apply to USB attached storage; though this was the trick to have avamar stop backing up CD/DVD/Floppy drives.

Anyhow, looking for a generic way to skip USB attached storage on Windows. I reviewed the logs and anytime Avamar scans the hard drives it always sees the internal storage and the USB storage as "local fixed disks" -- so, my hopes are not high for getting a solution, but thought I would check.

For now I have a generic exclusion for our windows dataset that excludes any drive letters higher than C: (no, this wasn't automatic, i added d:\, e:\, f:\, etc). This will work but means I'll need to always keep track of those servers where we do have local disks other than C: that we want backed up.

Thanks for anything you have to offer.

Bryan

Randeep_Singh · Answer

Well you are very much right. i think you have done right by excluding all the drives first, then including 'C' drive only. If i am not wrong you are taking backup of only 'C' drive thereby excluding other drives and usb drives. I think you have to keep track of beacuse exclusion and inclusion rules in Avamar are designed so and it is the best practise to exclude all files or folders first, then include only files or folders or drives that need to be backed up.

gert_de_vente_e31e32 · Answer

I must say, that over 6 years time, hashtags like #LOCALDISKS# (meaning all IDE, SCSI, SATA, SAS disks), #ALLDISKS# (meaning any disks, the current default) and #USBDISKS# (meaning any disk attachted via USB channel) still do not exist for either include or exclude list...

Last decade the USB disks were poorly available and relatively small, however nowadays USB disks are fairly available and easy storing over 1 TB of data ...

J_H_ · Answer

You are doing correct in trying to limit the number of Datasets and policies as it will make management easier.

but here is my suggestion to you

And it will have to work server by server, but once setup you only have to worry about NEW USB drives.

Excluding everything above C can bite you latter if they add a drive and you do not know about it.

You can do an exclude for just that server, with out messing with the dataset used by all the servers.

on the client go to

\program files\avs\var

create a file called avtar.cmd (check to make sure it does not have .txt hidden/appended to it or it will not work)

put one line in the file for the drive name that has the USB drive

--exclude="d:"

save the file.

When the backup runs for that server it will read this into the job and exclude the d: drive.

Avamar

Exclude USB Attached Drives - Windows File System agent

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