Accessing Data Protection Manager replica data
Friday, February 25th, 2011 by William Gannon (See all posts by William Gannon)
DPM (Data Protection Manager) is a Windows solution for automatically creating backups of information. DPM offers disk and tape based backups. When using a disk based solution, DPM utilizes a storage pool for replicas of protected data on the DPM server or a custom volume. Replicas are placed inside of DPM-created volumes. On the DPM server, if you go to Storage -> Disk Management inside of Server Manager, you should see all the different DPM replica volumes displayed – one for every protected member.
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While managing DPM, you may find the need to access the replica data directly or to manually copy data to the replica volume. In order to find out where the replica data is stored, open up DPM 2010 Administrator Console (Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 -> Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2010). Select Protection at the top to see all protection groups. Click on the protected member you want to access.
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In the bottom pane, select Click to view details for Replica path:. The details of the replica path will appear. You can right-click the list view text to copy the source and the path and put the text into Notepad. If you cut the text to just what is under the Destination (DPM Server) section, you will have the path to the replica data; you can then copy and paste the path into an Explorer window to access the data.
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If you try to copy something directly to a folder holding the replica, you might encounter a Destination Path Too Long error. Even though NTFS filesystems support file path name lengths of 32,000, Windows API only allows a path name length of MAX_PATH which is set to 260 characters by default. To get around this, you will have to mount the replica volume using mountvol.
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First, notice the section of the replica path that looks like vol_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Keep note of that text.
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Open up a command prompt or powershell. Type mountvol and press enter. The usage of mountvol is displayed along with UNC pathnames for the available replica volumes; UNC pathnames support file path names of up to 32,000 characters in length. Copy the UNC pathname for the volume you want to access; in my case the UNC pathname is \\?\Volume{331df2ae-e0be-11df-b2e7-00265511b16d}\.
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Next, type mountvol available drive letter:\ UNC pathname and press enter; this command mounts the UNC volume with the specified drive letter. When using the command, use only available drive letters for the mount point.
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In order to see the mounted drive inside of My Computer, you must set hidden folders to be visible. If you do not already have hidden files set to be visible, go to Control Panel -> Appearance -> Folder Options. Inside of Folder Options, select the View tab. Then select the radio button for Show hidden files, folders, and drives under Hidden files and folders. Select Apply then select OK.
Now the volume should show up inside of My Computer. You can now access the volume data and change data as needed.
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When you are finished, use mountvol again to dismount the replica volume. In the command prompt or powershell, type mountvol driveletter used to mount DPM volume:\ /d. Also, consider making hidden files invisible again in Folder Options.
