Standalone backup agent for Microsoft Windows servers and workstations (formerly Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE)
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aaron@ARB
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Simple USB Rotated Drive Query

Post by aaron@ARB »

Veeam,

Just installed VEB today and have a question. Basically I want to have 2 USB drives with SetA and SetB which just rotate between themselves. How I think you set it up would be set the restore points to 7, set the backup time to 21:00 and have the users swap the drives on friday before they leave about 17:00. This would mean that

Set A
Friday: Set A Full Backup (Restore Point 1)
Saturday: Set A Incremental Backup (Restore Point 2)
Sunday: Set A Incremental Backup (Restore Point 3)
Monday: Set A Incremental Backup (Restore Point 4)
Tuesday: Set A Incremental Backup (Restore Point 5)
Wednesday: Set A Incremental Backup (Restore Point 6)
Thursday: Set A Incremental Backup (Restore Point 7)

SetB is then inserted which being an empty drive the whole process starts agin

Set B
Friday: Set B Full Backup (Restore Point 1)
Saturday: Set B Incremental Backup (Restore Point 2)
Sunday: Set B Incremental Backup (Restore Point 3)
Monday: Set B Incremental Backup (Restore Point 4)
Tuesday: Set B Incremental Backup (Restore Point 5)
Wednesday: Set B Incremental Backup (Restore Point 6)
Thursday: Set B Incremental Backup (Restore Point 7)

What happens when I swap the SetA drive back in again? it has 7 restore points on it, but they are now over a week old. Does VEB logic say that the drive does not have the LAST current 7 days of restore points so it starts a full backup again and runs incrementals each day? This is what I WANT to happen and it looks like it should but I wanted to ask first.

Also, Will it purge the old backups before it starts again?

Cheers,
Aaron
Dima P.
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Re: Simple USB Rotated Drive Query

Post by Dima P. »

Hi,

The retention should be applied during the job run. Keep in mind that each rotated drive has its own retention, which is counted in ‘days of successful backups’. For instance, if the device A was not plugged in for a year – it still keeps‘ 7 days of successful backups’. Next job run will create a new restore point and merge the oldest increment into full backup
aaron@ARB
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Re: Simple USB Rotated Drive Query

Post by aaron@ARB »

Sorry I don't quite understand.

Lets use your example for a moment..

Device A has 7 days of backups (as is mandated by the retention), it is then put aside for a year.

A year later the device is plugged back in again. what happens to the backups that are on set A that are clearly out of date and are no good anymore? When the next backup runs are they all deleted and a new full backup written to the device? The data that is on the device currently clearly being a year old would be completely useless (assuming we are doing a weekly rotation) so what would happen? can you elaborate?

The full backup that is on the disk (assuming 1 full and 6 incrementals) wouldnt help you as its so out of date the only way to bring it back up to date would be to start again wouldn't it?
Dima P.
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Re: Simple USB Rotated Drive Query

Post by Dima P. »

After you swap drives, VEB detects if there is a backup chain on the currently attached drive. If the backup chain exists, Veeam Endpoint Backup continues the existing chain: it creates a new incremental backup file and adds it to the existing backup files. Then old restore points are merged into fist full backup.

Back to your case:

- USB drive A with Full(day1) + Inc(day2) + Inc(day3) + Inc(day4) + Inc(day5) + Inc5(day6) + Inc(day7) was kept safe for a year.
- You connect it and start a backup
- New Inc(day ‘8 + 365’) will be created and Inc(day2) will be merged into full backup replacing the Full(day1)
- Once completed your backup chain will look like Full(day2) + Inc(day3) + Inc(day4) + Inc(day5) + Inc(day6) + Inc(day7) + Inc(day ‘8 + 365’)

Check Backup Retention Policy Help Center article for more details about exising retention logic.
aaron@ARB
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Re: Simple USB Rotated Drive Query

Post by aaron@ARB »

hi Dima,

Okay I think were I was getting confused was the fact that somewhere I read where it talks about the LATEST x days of backups, where as its more so referring to SUCCESSFUL days of backup. so as you say, if you had a backup device offline for a year, the first 'incremental' backup is going to be quite large as if the data has changed a lot in that year, it will look probably more like a full backup than a small incremental?
Dima P.
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Re: Simple USB Rotated Drive Query

Post by Dima P. »

Yup, it’s definitely going to be bigger than a usual incremental file.
aaron@ARB
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Re: Simple USB Rotated Drive Query

Post by aaron@ARB »

Okay at least I now understand :)

What would be good as a feature (and in the main product) would be the notion of cycling out backups by time as well as day retention as is now the case as even using my example as a reference.

Taking my above example, the time you start to use the USB that has been out of circulation for a year, the notion of having it do another incremental might be quite contrary to what you want given that the server has probably been used quite a bit in the last year. It would be good if you could say that for example if a backup chain is more than 3 months old, consider it 'stale' and of no use and start a new one.

Is there any issue in implementing such functionality manually via a script before my backup runs? For example check the age of the files on the USB and if they are greater than XX days, simply delete them. Veeam would then come along to run the backup, realise there are no backup files on the USB and then start a full backup again. Is there an issue with that logic?
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