PowerProtect backup and replication jogs taking a long time to complete

Summary: The PowerProtect Data Manager appliance is used to protect the vSphere environment with the Transparent Snapshot Data Mover (TSDM) solution. The backup and replication for a specific Windows virtual machine (VM) is taking a significant amount of time during every execution. ...

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Symptoms

The backup workflow log shows a high value for the UsedBtyes and ChangedBytes for the VM:


UsedBytes  

The example shows the ChangedBytes value of 70251266048 bytes (70.3 GB). The VM evaluation shows that the VM is not very active every day and should not have such a high UsedBtyes and ChangedBytes value.

Cause

The cause is the Guest OS Unmap setting on the VM. The Unmap setting is a feature that allows an application or operating system to reclaim space on a storage array. This is done by informing the array that disk blocks contain deleted data, which allows the array to deallocate those blocks. 

Resolution

Disable the Unmap setting on the Guest OS or use the File System Agent to protect the file system.

  • To verify the current Unmap setting: fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify
DisableDeleteNotify=0 - indicates the Trim and Unmap feature is on (enabled)
DisableDeleteNotify=1 - indicates the Trim and Unmap feature is off (disabled)
  • To disable the Unmap setting: fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 1

Additional Information

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2150251This hyperlink is taking you to a website outside of Dell Technologies.

Affected Products

Data Protection, PowerProtect Data Manager
Article Properties
Article Number: 000217326
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 05 Feb 2025
Version:  1
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