Disk Space for Journal Files

LiveVault Online Backup Service creates and uses journal files to temporarily store replicated data during backup. As changes are written to the source files on your Agent computer, LiveVault Online Backup Service puts a copy of the changes into journal files. These journal files are transferred to the backup server, where they are written into the associated files.

The minimum requirement for available disk space on the volume containing your journal files is 150 MB or 5% free disk space (whichever is greater). However, if your available bandwidth is low or your computer's data change rate is high, more disk space may be required. In these cases we recommend having available disk space roughly equal to 10% of the total amount of data being backed up from the computer.

During LiveVault Online Backup Service Agent software installation, you specify the volume and directory that will form the root path for storing the LiveVault Online Backup Service replication files, which includes the journal files and the LiveVault Online Backup Service internal databases. The default root path is <drive>:\LiveVault, and the journal files are stored in the subdirectory \Journals. The journal files must be stored on a local fixed disk and the volume cannot be compressed.

By default, the Agent Setup program chooses the drive with the most free disk space at installation time (as determined by the Setup program). However, you can specify a particular volume during the installation if you choose a custom installation.

LiveVault Online Backup Service proactively monitors and manages disk space on the journal file volume using a variety of methods. If LiveVault Online Backup Service determines that disk space is insufficient on the journal file volume for backup operations, it takes corrective actions:

• It restarts all backup jobs for this Agent. This deletes all the existing journal files on the Agent that have not been sent to the backup server, so that LiveVault Online Backup Service is consuming less disk space on the journal file volume. When the job restarts, LiveVault Online Backup Service resynchronizes any changed files, ensuring the integrity of your backup.

• If disk space is low when a backup job starts, the job fails. LiveVault Online Backup Service will automatically retry the job at a later time.

If jobs cannot run due to insufficient disk space on the journal volume, LiveVault Online Backup Service sends an email to the computer's primary technical contact notifying them of the problem. In this case, we request that the contact free up disk space on the journal file volume roughly equal to 10% of the total amount of data being backed up from this computer.

Important: The data on that computer is not protected until you free up the necessary disk space on the journal file volume and all the changed data has been replicated to the backup server. The time required for the computer to be fully under protection again depends on the amount of changed data and the speed of your Internet connection.