question about backup files

[lohelle]

A backup set has one large .vbk file (synt. full) and one .vrb for the differential backup jobs. Is it possible to delete/move some of the .vrb's after a while?
I tried to move some of them away, but when trying to restore an old VM, VB asked for all the vrb's between the backup date (the date I tried to restore from) and up to "today".

I think it would be great to be able to "clean out" some old backups (but not all). This way we could move old diffs to a secondary storage a different place in the building every night, and when we need to take this out of the building (lets say every month), we copy the "fulls" to. This would save place on the backup target, and it would take shorter time to copy the target data to -> secondary target as most of the vrb's already had been copied over.

If all diffs in between restore date and "now" is needed, maybe veeam could prompt you to browse to the new location of the .vrb ?

[Gostev]

Lars, yes - you can move or delete older VRBs manually at any time.

[lohelle]

But why did Veeam ask for the "diffs in between" ?

Example:

Jan 4. - First backup
Jan 5. - Diff (moved to other drive)
Jan 6. - Diff (moved)
Jan 7. - Diff (moved)
Jan 8. - Diff (moved)
Jan 9. - Diff (moved)
Jan 10. - Diff

When trying to restore a VM from Jan 8. I first copied the diff for that date to the target folder. Veeam said the backup for Jan 7. was missing and failed.
Then I copied the backup from Jan 7. also to the backup target, but then restore said the diff from Jan 6. was missing (and so on). When copying the Jan 6. and Jan 5. diff to the backup target the restore worked.
So it seems like all the diffs in between is expected to be there (but I don't think any data is read from them)

[Gostev]

Lars, VRB files are not differentials, they are incrementals ("reversed" incrementals, to be more precise) - which is why you need all incrementals in between as well. See here for more information about Veeam's synthetic backup.

[lohelle]

Ahh.. My bad! (as usual)

[lohelle]

But I will still suggest that veeam prompts for missing files.
I have 2 TB of fast SAS storage as target storage for backups, and a few 2TB HOTSWAP SATA's for removable storage. It would be great to be able to move the incrementals away after the backup is complete. We can then put the incrementals on one 2TB drive and the full on one, then start all over again with 2 new 2TB SATA's (and empty the primary backup target storage.