Backup Retention

[Stampede]

Hi Guys,
I'm having an issue which is totally based on my limited disk space. I'm trying to do a lot with a little, and maybe someone else has experienced this before.
So my backups are set for a retention rate of 5 incrementals + 1 full backup. I noticed today I have a full chain of 5+1 and now I've started an additional new chain with 1 complete and 1 incremental.
I was under the impression that the previous chain would slowly collapse itself, meaning as each day I gain a new backup point the previous chain of 5+1 will have the full backup merge with the next incremental giving me one less incremental backup. Eventually the full backup of the old chain deleting itself because it has no other incrementals to merge with.

Right now I'm afraid my backups will keep going until space runs out!

Thanks,
Peter

[PTide]

Hi,

Did you configured any intermediate full backups, either active or synthetic? If so then please take a look at this article explaining forward-incremental retention policy.

Thank you.

[foggy]

What backup method do you use? Forward or reversed incremental?

[Stampede]

Hi Foggy, Hi PTide,

I am looking to use forward incremental backups every week day with an active full backup on Saturday and no action on Sunday.

What I currently have set:
Storage: Restore points to keep on disk = 5
-- Advanced: Incremental is selected.
Active full Backup: Create Active Full Backup Periodically is selected. Weekly on these selected days: Saturday.
Schedule: Run this Job Automatically is selected. Daily at this time (9:00PM) On These Days (Mon-Fri).

That's about all I have set on both jobs does that sound right?

[foggy]

The behavior you're seeing is expected, please review how retention works for forward incremental mode (the link Pavel has mentioned above).

If you're after forever incremental mode, where the specified number of restore points is maintained by merging the oldest one into the full backup, then you need to disable periodic active fulls.

[Stampede]

Hey Foggy,
Thanks so much for the info. Ptides link explains it very well. I think my need for 2 chains at any time is most important. I don't think I could rely on Forever Incremental just in a worst case scenario situation. My space calculation did not take into account that forward incremental creates a full 2nd chain before deleting the first chain. I will have to probably just add some more space to my SAN in order to make this work properly.
What I had in mind was a fusion of the forever and forward incremental methods, but that was just a misunderstanding on my end. Thanks for your help!!!