Does removing a VM guest from a backup job delete it's files

davidkillingsworth · Mar 17, 2014 4:56 am

I have a backup job that has 10 VM guests in it.

I have permanently shut down 7 of those VM guests and let backups run for a few days with the VM guests included as part of the job.

Today, I removed those 7 VM guests from the backup job.

Will the backup files for those VM guests be kept on disk permanently or will they be removed automatically somehow?

Under Storage \ Advanced Settings \ Advanced - VM retention
"Remove deleted VMs data from backup after (14) days) is NOT checked.

To ask the question a different way, do we have a permanent archive of those VM guests that are not running anymore?

Thanks in advance.

Post by **veremin** » Mar 17, 2014 8:08 am this post

I'm wondering what backup you're using. Forward or reversed incremental one? Thanks.

AdrianHinton · Post by **AdrianHinton** » Apr 15, 2014 9:07 pm this post

Hi v.Eremin,

Would you be so nice as to provide answers for each of the scenarios you have inquired about?

Thank you.

Post by **foggy** » Apr 16, 2014 5:33 am this post

In case of forward incremental mode, VMs will be kept until corresponding backup files are removed according to retention settings specified in the corresponding job. For reverse incremental, there's a 'Deleted VMs retention period' setting that handles the behavior of the VBK file blocks belonging to removed VMs (basically, marking them as free). You can read more details here.

Aremac · Post by **Aremac** » Nov 18, 2014 6:34 pm this post

I'd like clarification. If I want to point existing backup jobs to a new repository without moving over existing backups I can delete from backup. The existing backups will remain intact but will no longer be associated with the backup jobs. Is this correct?

Thanks,

Post by **Vitaliy S.** » Nov 18, 2014 7:07 pm this post

Hi Sam,

Yes, If you use remove from backups option, then VM restore points records will be removed from the Veeam backup database, but will remain on the repository. See this web page for further reading.

If you want to create new backup chain for this job, you can just schedule new active full backup pointed to the new repository.

Thanks!

Post by **foggy** » Nov 19, 2014 11:05 am this post

Here's an existing thread discussing this scenario: Change Repository Without Copying Files

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