Hi Dan,  stick with file-based (dump/PAX) NDMP unless you have a specific reason to need VBB (also called NVB) and understand the differences.  VBB does a block-level copy of the whole file system much like a dd (or Ghost/Acronis) plus it also captures the info which files are using which blocks to enable a single-file recovery.  VBB Pro's: faster backup with lots of small files faster full restore  VBB Con's: slower single file restore not very backup software supports it cannot do a single-file restore of deduplicated files  Details are in the Celerra NDMP manual and the while paper on Powerlink  In order to store deduplication files as still compressed on tape with NDP PAX you just need min. DART 5.6.47 This is NOT for VBB - in VBB its always stored compressed since its a block (image) based backup Just get the release notes from Powerlink and search for "Space-reduced backups" The new version of the Deduplication manual should cover this  Rainer
I have the option in BackupExec (it is what I have to work with) to use either VBB or DUMP - All of the backups are defined as "DUMP" currently.  I'm pretty sure support for VBB is somewhat new in BE, what are the pros/cons to doing VBB vs DUMP?  I am currently running 5.6.45-5 and am utilizing dedupe on my file systems.  The backups are currently "un-deduped" and I have seen in the release notes of some later versions can backup the data without reconstituting the data...has anyone done this, and does it require VBB for this to work?  Thanks  Dan
NDMP - DUMP or VBB