Dstojak,
The client backup folder is automatically created, but you do have the ability to move its location utilizing the Move a folder wizard.
Client backup was designed to have only one database, and you cannot specify more than one location for the target.
This means you must have all of the database files in the same location (only supports one folder).
When it comes to storage, the “Format a Hard Disk” wizard will only create partitions that are up to 2TB in size.
For example: If you connect a 4 TB un-initialized HDD and run the “Format a Hard Disk” wizard (the link to run this wizard is in the new un-initialized disk alert that will be raised when the disk is connected) you will end up with a GPT
disk with 2 2TB NTFS partitions. The reason we made this decision is due to a technical limitation in server backup.
Server backup utilizes VHDs and since VHDs are implemented with 512 byte sectors, the maximum size it can support is ~2TB.
We wanted to insure the user could backup any of the drives we created with our wizards.
Now, if you want to have a single 4TB partition on that disk you can.
You will just need to manually partition the disk either on the server (utilizing native OS utilities) or from a client prior to connecting the disk to the server.
The only issue with having > 2TB partitions is that server backup will fail to backup that drive.
Client backup does utilize single cluster instancing.
If your clients have the same data, only 1 instance of it will be stored on the server.
This should help when it comes to backing up multiple clients.
It is hard to say how much space this will save because it is dependent on the data stored on each client.
The more unique data, the more must be stored on the server.
Hope that helps.
Robert Dhaene [MSFT]
Post is "AS IS" and confers no rights.
