Enterprise Vault™ Setting up File System Archiving (FSA)
- About this guide
- About File System Archiving
- About FSA shortcut files
- Steps to configure File System Archiving
- Adding a Windows file server to File System Archiving
- About archiving from Windows Server 2012 or later file servers
- Permissions and privileges required by the Vault Service account on Windows file servers
- Adding a NetApp filer to File System Archiving
- Adding a NetApp C-Mode Vserver to File System Archiving
- Adding a Celerra/VNX device to File System Archiving
- Adding a Dell EMC Unity device to File System Archiving
- Configuring FSA with clustered file servers
- Troubleshooting the configuration of FSA with clustered file servers
- Installing the FSA Agent
- Defining volume and folder policies
- About selecting the shortcut type for an FSA policy
- About FSA policy archiving rules
- Configuring the deletion of archived files on placeholder deletion
- Configuring target volumes, target folders, and archive points
- About adding target volumes, target folders, and archive points for FSA
- About managing archive points
- Archive point properties
- Effects of modifying, moving, or deleting folders
- About deleting target folders, volumes, and file servers
- Configuring pass-through recall for placeholder shortcuts
- Configuring and managing retention folders
- Configuring and running FSA tasks
- Using Run Now to process FSA targets manually
- Configuring file system filtering
- Managing the file servers
- PowerShell cmdlets for File System Archiving
- Appendix A. Permissions and privileges required for the Vault Service account on Windows file servers
- Permissions required by the Vault Service account for the FSA Agent
About placeholder shortcuts
When FSA archives a file it can optionally leave a placeholder shortcut. Placeholder shortcuts behave exactly as the original files. A placeholder shortcut has the same file extension as the file to which it is a shortcut. When a user opens a placeholder shortcut, the original file is retrieved automatically.
A placeholder shortcut shows the size of the file that it replaced, although the shortcut itself takes up very little space.
Placeholder shortcuts are supported on NTFS devices, NetApp filers, and Dell EMC Celerra/VNX devices. To use placeholders on a Windows file server the FSA Agent must be installed on the file server.
For details of the exact requirements for placeholders, see the Enterprise Vault Compatibility Charts.
When you define an FSA policy that specifies leaving placeholder shortcuts, you can choose whether to do the following:
Delete placeholders for the items that have been deleted from archives.
Delete archived files when placeholders are deleted.
Table: Characteristics of placeholder shortcuts describes the behavior of placeholder shortcuts when you open, copy, move, or delete them.
Table: Characteristics of placeholder shortcuts
Action on placeholder | Effect |
---|---|
Open | The file is recalled from the archive. Note: If pass-through recall is in effect, Enterprise Vault recalls the file to disk only if the calling application requires a writeable version. A file that is recalled to the file server replaces the placeholder shortcut.
|
Copy | The source file is restored and then copied. The destination file is a copy of the restored original file. Note: The copy operation does not restore the source file to disk if pass-through recall is in effect. Enterprise Vault converts a restored original file back to a placeholder on the next archiving service run. The only exception is if the archiving policy's shortcut creation rules are based on the last access time. In that case, Enterprise Vault reverts the file only when the shortcut creation rules are met. |
Move | If the destination is on the same volume, the placeholder is moved. If the destination is on a different volume, the archived file is restored and then moved to the destination. |
Delete | You can configure Enterprise Vault to delete archived files when their placeholders are deleted, if you want. You must configure some settings for the file server, and apply an archiving policy with the appropriate settings. See About configuring the deletion of archived files on placeholder deletion. |
Note the following restrictions and limitations that relate to placeholders:
Unwanted placeholder recalls can occur if you use the Windows Explorer preview pane that is provided in recent versions of Windows. When you select a placeholder, Windows recalls the file to display the preview. This restriction is due to a limitation with the previewing of offline files.
Enterprise Vault cannot create placeholder shortcuts on NTFS file systems for files with extended attributes, such as the following:
Files that were migrated from Novell file systems or from HPFS (OS/2) file systems
Files that were previously archived with applications such as Dell EMC DiskXtender
Enterprise Vault archives files that have extended attributes, but the placeholder creation fails. This limitation is due to a Microsoft restriction: placeholders use reparse points, which cannot contain extended attributes.
EVEARemovalUtility is a command line utility that removes extended attributes from files, so that Enterprise Vault can create placeholders for them successfully. For more information about EVEARemovalUtility, see the Utilities guide.
On NetApp C-Mode filers, recall of large files (larger than 50 MB) may time out. For information about increasing the timeout value on the Vserver, see the NetApp documentation.
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