Trying to find a way to decrease size of NAS backup data

[rwatt]

Case #07027430

I feel like I'm going in circles. I understand that adding more storage to anything makes everyone's life easier, but I'm struggling to understand why there isn't a better way to handle regaining NAS backup storage space within Veeam. Context: We have a File Server job with 11 shares/servers in it.

First problem I have is that when the backup job was created years ago, it was running more times that it should -- 4 times a day. As a result it was quickly consuming space. We switched this to once a day later on, but by this time the backup was taking up a large amount of space. I was trying to see if "Remove-VBRNASBackup -RestorePoint" could allow for manually removing old restore points for these file servers, but tech support helped me understand that this is not how it was designed and will break the backup chain. Because NAS backups are forward incremental forever I cannot remove any prior restore points in the chain.

Second problem is that two file servers no longer exist in the infrastructure. The VMs were decommissioned months ago. The file shares no longer exist. We do not need their backups anymore. Their data has already been dealt with externally. So I would like to delete their backups in Veeam. But it appears I cannot do anything about it. I can see the servers in Backups -> Disk -> File Share job. However, since the servers no longer exist in inventory, they don't have a NASServerId. It's been zeroed out in Veeam.

Code: Select all

PS> $backupfile = Get-VBRNASBackup -Name "FileServers"
PS> Get-VBRNASServer -Backup $backupfile

Type                 : FileServer
Server               : 58c4f609-d377-4a16-a273-2eb5c60b0d53
Name                 : server1.example.com
Id                   : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
CacheRepository      :
BackupIOControlLevel : Medium

Type                 : FileServer
Server               : b95931b4-b303-42b5-8199-679239a80c2a
Name                 : server2.example.com
Id                   : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
CacheRepository      :
BackupIOControlLevel : Medium

If I use Example #4 referenced in https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120, it errors out:

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PS> $backupfile = Get-VBRNASBackup -Name "FileServers"
PS> $server = Get-VBRNASServer -Name "server1.example.com"
PS> Get-VBRNASBackupRestorePoint -NASServer $server -NASBackup $backupfile

Get-VBRNASBackupRestorePoint : Cannot validate argument on parameter 'NASServer'. The argument is null or empty.
Provide an argument that is not null or empty, and then try the command again.
At line:1 char:41
+ Get-VBRNASBackupRestorePoint -NASServer $server -NASBackup $backupfil ...
+                                         ~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (:) [Get-VBRNASBackupRestorePoint], ParameterBindingValidationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationError,Veeam.Backup.PowerShell.Cmdlets.GetVBRNASBackupRestorePoint

If I run "Get-VBRNASServer" by itself with no switches, these two servers are not listed. I understand that it's looking for an NASServer object, but it no longer exists. I get that. But is that it? No server, so the data is stuck in the backups with no recourse?

I can see the restore points. I can get the restore point IDs using the following command. But I can't get the information in any useful state for Veeam to take action on.

Code: Select all

PS> Get-VBRNASBackupRestorePoint -NASBackup $backupfile | Export-CSV -NoTypeInformation VBRNASBackupRestorePoint-ALL.csv

A few lines from the csv file. There are thousands of restore point IDs between these two servers that I need to remove.

Code: Select all

Id	NASServerId	NASServerName	BackupId	CreationTime	Type	IsComplete
45932d0b-a2bd-4216-a1f0-019a31302586	00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000	server1.example.com	21ff000d-c89b-46cd-98a5-6aefac2bb6eb	11/30/2021 00:00	Full	TRUE
2b337729-4fa4-4c0d-93f2-028557536eeb	00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000	server1.example.com	21ff000d-c89b-46cd-98a5-6aefac2bb6eb	12/16/2021 00:00	Full	TRUE
005d44a8-42f1-405b-b00e-02953452974a	00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000	server1.example.com	21ff000d-c89b-46cd-98a5-6aefac2bb6eb	11/28/2021 00:00	Full	TRUE
abdb781c-df4d-4963-bb2c-02caaa97b7a0	00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000	server1.example.com	21ff000d-c89b-46cd-98a5-6aefac2bb6eb	12/11/2021 00:00	Full	TRUE
df98c194-c018-4bf7-ad88-034955a945aa	00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000	server1.example.com	21ff000d-c89b-46cd-98a5-6aefac2bb6eb	12/07/2021 18:00	Full	TRUE
feac9be2-f601-4c05-8765-037fb0971561	00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000	server1.example.com	21ff000d-c89b-46cd-98a5-6aefac2bb6eb	12/27/2021 12:00	Full	TRUE

Now I'm stuck. I've got backups I no longer need that I seemingly cannot get rid of and I'm just looking for guidance.

[rwatt]

Well, I must admit embarrassment at the second issue. I completely missed the option to right-click on an VM object in the drop-down of the Backups -> Disk -> Job and select "Delete from disk". <facepalm> I had only tried to see if there was a context menu option inside the properties window of said job -- which doesn't work. This this is the first time I've needed to delete a VM from the disk.

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... om-backups

[Dima P.]

Hello Richard,

There is no way to remove the data from the NAS backup files manually, only via retention or by using offload to archive repository. Additionally you can start a new backup chain and delete the existing one completely (or offload in to some cheap storage manually till it's no longer needed). Thank you!