Backup copy job - single restore point?

[john.brodhurst]

I'm looking for a way to configure a Backup Copy job to retain a single restore point and to run exactly once per day, when its parent Backup job completes.

It's proving a little difficult to achieve the first part - the copy job creation wizard will only allow two as a minimum; querying the job in PowerShell indicates that the RetainCycles setting is 14 which makes me think it's not the right setting.

This is preventing us from deploying a copy job as a final stage and instead we rely on a somewhat contrived PowerShell script which checks for the completion result of the parent job before trying to copy. The disk is only changed Mon - Fri, and over the weekend the disk should contain only the most recent (so Friday night's backup on Saturday morning, Saturday night's backup on Sunday morning and Sunday night's backup on Monday morning).

Am I missing something? I feel like this shouldn't be quite so hard.

[veremin]

The minimal number of restore points backup copy job can store is 2. So, you can't go below that number. Since the second restore point will be an increment, it should not occupy a lot of space. Thanks.

[john.brodhurst]

That is a good point. I had considered this but the brief I received was for a single restore point.

Is there are reason why the minimum is 2?

Bonus question: is it possible to prevent a copy job from commencing a new sync on certain days of the week, but to allow it to complete a sync if it over runs? I thought of permitted schedule windows but that would interrupt a running sync.

[PTide]

Bonus question: is it possible to prevent a copy job from commencing a new sync on certain days of the week

Not in GUI. I think you could use a Powershell script that disables copy jobs on certain days.

[foggy]

Is there are reason why the minimum is 2?

This has safety considerations behind.

Bonus question: is it possible to prevent a copy job from commencing a new sync on certain days of the week, but to allow it to complete a sync if it over runs? I thought of permitted schedule windows but that would interrupt a running sync.

The job cannot overrun the sync interval, so you can configure the window so that it corresponds with the sync interval start.

[john.brodhurst]

Thanks for the quick responses, Pavel and Foggy.

I appreciate the explanation of the need for 2 points. Unfortunately the removable repository is just slightly too small to sustain that. We observed over the weekend that with a copy job for both a Veeam backup and and a VEB the 2TB (1.85TB) drive is 100% full by Monday morning, so we do need to find some way of suspending the copy. The Veeam job full is currently 866GB and the VEB job is 649GB. Incremental backups are approx 85GB and 2GB.

On the topic of job disablement, would this interrupt a running sync? If the job is enabled at (for instance) midday, but isn't scheduled to begin its sync cycle until 18:00 would it commence immediately or would it wait until the scheduled time?

Lastly, if a backup copy job is disabled but is configured as the secondary destination for a regular backup job will it still try to run? Sorry if that sounds like a stupid question.

[foggy]

On the topic of job disablement, would this interrupt a running sync?

Yes.

If the job is enabled at (for instance) midday, but isn't scheduled to begin its sync cycle until 18:00 would it commence immediately or would it wait until the scheduled time?

It will wait for the allowed hours to start.

A bit more on that here.

Lastly, if a backup copy job is disabled but is configured as the secondary destination for a regular backup job will it still try to run?

Disabled job will not try to run.