One should be careful and pay attention before deleting any data manually from a data protection solution.
There might be a lot of information about the save sets that are available to be deleted. However, we need to know a few other items before we start to remove the save sets.
Begin by verifying that there are save sets that have expired or are eligible to be removed.
Use the following command for this: mminfo -avot -q ssrecycle,family=disk
If there are eligible save sets that have not been removed you need to check a few items before starting to remove the data:
1. Make sure that none of the volumes with expired save sets are unmounted. In the NMC select Devices | Devices. A “volume name” should show a name under the “Volume name” column. If it is blank the volume is not mounted.
2. Make sure that none of the volumes with expired save sets are read-only: In the NMC select Media | Disk Volumes. Right-click on “Properties”. If needed, select “Change Mode” so that it does not show as ‘Read Only’.
3. Make sure that none of the volumes with expired save sets are disabled: In the NMC select “Devices”. Check each of the devices that are involved. They should show ‘Yes’ under the ‘Enabled’ column.
4. Make sure that the volume is not flagged as ‘scan needed’. If it is flagged the NetWorker commands for removing save sets will not delete any of the old save sets from the device until the flag is changed to “scan is not needed” or scanned using the “scanner -m <Device> command.
Here is a quick way to check the flags and change them for the volumes to verify that no scans are needed for the volumes:
1. At a command prompt run the command: “mminfo -mV” . This will show the current status for all of the volumes.
2. If any volumes are marked as “scan needed, do the following:
2a. Make sure that the volume or the device is unmounted.
2b. Change the status using: NMC | Media | Disk Volumes | right-click volume | select ‘Mark Scan Needed’ | select “Scan is NOT needed”.
2c. Remount the volume.
2d. Note: If the volume does not reset to “scan is not needed” or if it returns to “scan needed” in a short time after resetting the flag, it is recommended to reset the volume to ‘scan NOT needed’ by running the “scanner -m <Device>” command.
3. If the volumes do not show that they need to be scanned then you should search first for any eligible save sets with the following command: mminfo -avot -q ssrecycle,family=disk
4. This will show all of the save sets that should be eligible for removal by the automated removal command from the disk storage. Make a note of the volume names in the first column as these will be needed for the next command to remove the save sets:
5. Run “nsrstage -C -V <volumeName>” to remove the old save sets that are eligible for removal.
If you have to save sets that you desire to remove but they have not expired, you will need to expire the save sets first using the following steps:
1. Pick a date or range of dates for which the save sets will need to be changed for removal using this command:
mminfo -avot -q “savetime<DD/MM/YYYY,savetime>DD/MM/YYYY”
2. Once you have selected the specific time interval that you desire for gathering the save sets you want to change to make them eligible for recycling, follow these steps:
First, gather the save set ID numbers:
i. mminfo -avot -q “savetime<DD/MM/YYYY,savetime>DD/MM/YYYY” –r ssid,cloneid -xc/ > Expire.txt *(see Note)
ii. Change the save set flags to indicate that the save set is recyclable with this command: “nsrmm -o recycleable -S <ssid>”.
Here is a script that will run this command on the entire file. [for /f %A in (Expire.txt) do @nsrmm -o recyclable -y -S %A]
iii. Now run the “nsrstage -C -V <VolumeName>” command to clean up the volumes that now have eligible save sets to be removed from Networker.
To change the retention times of save sets, you will need to edit the properties of the clients and/or the clones.
Please remember that when you change the retention time of a client it does not automatically change the retention times of any save sets that have already been backed up. They will need to be changed manually.
Please see https://support.emc.com/kb/196072 for more help with this process.
If you have a VBA in your system you may want to cross sync the devices so that all systems are synced as to the save sets on each system.
This can be performed with the following command:
nsrim -X -S -h <VBA_hostname>
If the command “nsrstage -C -V <VolumeName>” or nsrim -X has not removed the save sets, then you should contact Technical Support for further help.
Now go to the Data Domain and run the cleanup. You may want to contact the Data Domain Support if you are not familiar with the cleanup.
All of the above steps will take time to clean up the system. You may want to do this in smaller sections to clean up space.
Please do not skip steps as this may cause other problems in the system later.
If you still have problems or questions after performing these steps and need help from Technical Support, make sure that you have:
1. Kept notes as to the steps that you have taken and the results of that step.
2. Gathered the nsrget file for the Networker server.
3. If Data Domain is involved, gather the sfs_dump file. https://support.emc.com/kb/466061
Hope it helps