Setting up space effective Backup Job

[Syed Mazhar]

We are using Veeam Backup and Replication 7 to backup our two VMware hosts running 10 VMs. The backup job is set to run daily with 14 restore points to have retention policy of two weeks. The screenshot of current backup job is attached below:


Everything appears to be running normally except backup space appears to be using more space than expected. Currently backup job has used 6.70TB data to backup 2.2TB, for the retention policy of 2 weeks.


Can someone please suggest how can I reduce the usage of disk space but keep retaining 2 weeks of backups with daily backup job.

Many Thanks
Syed Mazhar

[Shestakov]

Hello Syed,

Everything appears to be running normally except backup space appears to be using more space than expected

Using forward incremental backup method with 14 restore points you actually keep more than 2 full backups(.vbk files) at the time. For instance, if you scheduled full backups on 1st, 8th, 15th... of August with chains of incremental backups(.vib files) in between, say on 18th of August you will have 3 .vbk files, since retention policy keeps .vib files of August, 4th-7th which rest upon 1st .vbk file, so your repository has to keep it until August 22th.

Can someone please suggest how can I reduce the usage of disk space but keep retaining 2 weeks of backups with daily backup job.

To avoid the described above behaviour, use reversed incremental backup method. Or click checkbox "Transform previous full backup chains into rollbacks" (see your screenshot); but, it less likely since requires additional resources.
Another option is to increase Data Compression and Deduplication. It helps;but, requires a trade-off. Switching from forward to reversed incremental method is to solve your problem, so, probably, you don`t need it for now.
On the forum were several topics with the same discussion. One and another.

[Syed Mazhar]

Thank you it was very help to know.

If I switch to "Reversed Incremental" backup, any un-wanted existing backup data/files will automatically be removed from the backup destination ? or do I have to manually delete unwanted backup files to free up the space?

Many Thanks
Syed Mazhar

[Shestakov]

You are welcome, Syed.
What do you call "un-wanted existing backup data/files"?
All backup files will be deleted in accordance to your retention policy.
Note, that a full backup is required while switching to reversed incremental backup mode. The full run will be automatically triggered at the next job run after switching.
Though since you use "Synthetic fulls", when the transformation has just completed you may change the backup mode to reversed incremental without having a full pass.