Feature Request - Date Filter for Files-to-Tape

[sbbots]

For Files-to-Tape jobs; An additional filter to choose the "cut off" date for copying files. The filter would make it possible to copy to tape only files created within the past X number of days without the need for PowerShell scripting. For example, this would be extremely useful for copying recent VBK files out of a repository (as opposed to ALL VBK files in the repository).

I am not a software engineer nor a Photoshop expert, so forgive my rudimentary idea for the filter below. I am just trying to convey where the filter would be extremely useful.



Please show us loyal Standard Version users some love Veeam!

[Dima P.]

Hello Matt,
Thank you for describing your idea in such details, that is amazing! To tell you the truth, relying on a file modification date, which is handled by the OS and could be changed by any application in the system, feels scary. However, in correlation with file masks that might work. Once again thank you for sharing your thoughts, I will discuss it with the team for sure.

[TommyB]

Hello Matt,
Thank you for describing your idea in such details, that is amazing! To tell you the truth, relying on a file modification date, which is handled by the OS and could be changed by any application in the system, feels scary.

Hmmm, I can't see anything "scary"... that's what the file modification date is made for... to be changed by any application in the system

Probably it would be a good idea to also make it possible to use the "archive" attribute for file backups, that way you don't need to specify a specific time span but you can back up everything that changed "since the last backup"

[veremin]

I believe what Dmitry meant was the fact that some system or 3-party application scans might affect file modification date and, as the result, the very same backup file would be archived to tapes several times. Thanks.

[sbbots]

To tell you the truth, relying on a file modification date, which is handled by the OS and could be changed by any application in the system, feels scary.

Fair enough concern. How about using the creation date? "Only copy files created within the past X days"?

Thanks for the consideration.

[veremin]

Then, we might face problems with copying .vbk's for those jobs that utilize always incremental mode. Both reversed and forward forever modes preserve only one .vbk that gets modified on regular basis. With that setting it will be just skipped from processing.

Anyway, we're going to discuss the feature and its' implementation with the devs and see what can be done in this regard.

Thanks.

[TommyB]

I believe what Dmitry meant was the fact that some system or 3-party application scans might affect file modification date and, as the result, the very same backup file would be archived to tapes several times. Thanks.

This holds true, regardless what attribute you are using... "it's not a bug, it's a feature"

I'd say that things that have changed since the last backup *have to be* backed up...

[Lord-Data]

This is a bit late to the party so to speak, but just wanted to say I'd like to put another vote to this issue.
We do SQL -> De-duplicating disk backup, and maintain 2-3 copies of the files on the deduplicated disk. I'd like to backup only the latest one to tape, to keep backup job times down.

[sbbots]

This is a bit late to the party so to speak, but just wanted to say I'd like to put another vote to this issue.
We do SQL -> De-duplicating disk backup, and maintain 2-3 copies of the files on the deduplicated disk. I'd like to backup only the latest one to tape, to keep backup job times down.

I made the original post several months ago and I do not think it is considered at this point. The filter is really only useful for the following setup:

- Using the Standard version of B&R (Only supports Files-to-Tape)
- Repository is a CIFS share

If you are using Enterprise B&R then you can already do full backups directly to tape. If you are using iSCSI instead of CIFS then you can create hardlinks to the most recent files during the job (powershell script).