Rotating Drives Backup and Restore Questions

[hyphen]

Hello, I have a couple of questions regarding rotating two usb drives in Veeam.

1- If I swap drives every day, does that mean Veeam will create a full backup every day? If that is the case, how often do you rotate drives?
2- If I need to restore a file from an external drive that I have just plugged in, how can I make Veeam show the restore points in that drive? It's showing the restore points from the previous connected drive.

Thank you for your help.

[DGrinev]

Hello, hyphen and welcome to the Veeam community!

1. That's correct, you will get a full backup every time you're rotating drives. You might consider a backup copy job for the rotated drive repository since it can deliver increments even if you will swap drives daily.
2. You can run the job targeting actual drive to see all the backups performed earlier.
Please review the article in the User Guide for additional information (restore related information at the bottom of the page). Thanks!

[hyphen]

1. That's correct, you will get a full backup every time you're rotating drives. You might consider a backup copy job for the rotated drive repository since it can deliver increments even if you will swap drives daily.

Do you mean I can use one main external drive only for the main Backup Job and leave it plugged in all the time, and then create a Backup Copy Job that will have two rotating drives as the backup repository, therefore always having an exact copy of the main drive in both rotating drives?

You can run the job targeting actual drive to see all the backups performed earlier.

Does this mean I would have to run a backup job to get it to display the restore points?

Thank you for all your help!

[DGrinev]

1. Yes, you can have the source backup on the separate external device or at the local datastore with the backup copy job targeting rotated drive repository.
It's important that the copy job isn't making an exact copy, but independent backup chain.

2. That's correct.

Thanks!

[hyphen]

Thank you for your answers.

It's important that the copy job isn't making an exact copy, but independent backup chain.

I'm not sure I understand the above. If we are making a Backup Copy to a repository with rotating external drives for redundancy, shouldn't the goal be to have an exact copy of the backups on all the drives involved?

[DGrinev]

The goal is to have another backup chain with the same list of VMs, isn't it?
It's not just a copy since we're working with the data blocks, not just copying source backup files.

Thanks!

[hyphen]

My goal would be to have two or more daily rotating drives, and each drive having an independent backup chain. But if I am understanding correctly, if I rotate daily, Veeam will start a new full backup and backup chain every time a drive changes, which means I will have daily full backups. Am I understanding this correctly?

Would it be better to rotate the drives less often?

Thank you for your patience.

[DGrinev]

That's correct, but only for the backup job.
The backup copy job will deliver increments if there is a backup chain on the drive.

I think you can rotate the drives less often or add a couple more drives in rotation since the full backups require extra space.

Thanks!

[hyphen]

Ok, I think I'm starting to understand. Please review my plan for any mistakes:

- The Backup Job will have a single external hard drive as the backup repository. This drive is always connected.
- The Backup Copy Job will have two rotating external hard drives as the backup repository. The drives will be rotated 5 times a week. The Backup Copy Job is a copy of the Backup Job repository. The two rotating external drives will always have an exact copy of whatever is in the Backup Job external drive.

Is this correct?

Thanks again for all your time and patience.

[DGrinev]

Yes, the said scenario should work for you.
Do not hesitate to come back later and ask for additional information.

Thanks!

[hyphen]

Thanks, you are very kind.

I created a Backup Copy Job and I was expecting that both connected drives would have the exact same files but I only saw a full backup and few increments on the Backup Copy Job drive. The backup job has a Please see the link below. Am I still misunderstanding what a Backup Copy Job does?

https://app.box.com/s/ak9uvjxspg5b619x3ekqnm6615oy5a9f

[veremin]

It seems so - backup copy job does not copy backup chain as a whole, instead it synthetically creates required restore points in "target" location from VM data in source backup repositories.

Kindly, check this section of our User Guide for more information about backup copy job mechanism.

Thanks!

[hyphen]

Thanks, so it sounds like if I want the exact same chain I should be using File Copy Job, is this correct?

[veremin]

Correct, or set sync interval equal to frequency of backup job and wait till backup copy job catches up. Thanks!

[Brickleberry]

i went with logic.
two backup sources, two backup jobs. working on an every other day schedule.
(no need for me to backup on just one day as no data has changed.
job one is for backup source one and job two is for backup source two.
they both run incrementals and fulls twice a month (one full on each)

if i need a restore i know that tuesday was backed up on source two, plug in source two and do the restore from job two.

i never have either source plugged in unless it is running a backup job or a restore is needed.