Delete old backups on rotating usb disks

[hallo there]

Hallo there,

Our situation:
We have Hyper V with installed Veeam Backup and Replication newest Version (Community Edition). Hyper V hosts DC and Excahnge 2019. We make backup to rotating usb disks.

We have 5 2TB Disks. The problem is that the disks running full and old Backups are not deleted automatically. I read that it hast something to do with the "retention policy" which can be set to a value. "This repository is backed by rotated hard drives" is enabled in our setup.

How can Veeam automatically detect if the disk is full and automatically erase old backups?

Thanks and regards

[DGrinev]

Hello,

You should reduce the restore points to keep that will force the deletion of RPs after the next successful run.
Can you provide settings for your backup job?

Thanks!

[foggy]

Depending on how disks are presented you may or may not need to use the registry values to cleanup drives.

[hallo there]

Hallo and thanks for answering!

@DGrinev: I set the restore points to "5". And I made 1 Fullbackup and 5 Incremental Backups for test purpose. I got 6 Files an notig was deleted automatically. Could you explain this please?

Settings of backup job:
-"application aware processing" (Exchange and Domaincontroller)
-"incremental" and once a week "active Full"
-We want to use 5 USB Disks with 2TB capacity each
-Fullbackup takes 700GB

Thanks for help and regards,
HT

[DGrinev]

That's expected behavior.
The forward incremental backup chain consists of one full backup file followed by increments.
Please check the animated KB1932 which shows you how and when the retention policy applies. Don't hesitate to ask additional questions.

Thanks!

[hallo there]

Hallo DGrinev,

thanks for answering.
But the old problem that my disks running full is not solved with the change of retention points...

Thanks and regards
HT

[DGrinev]

How often do you swap external drives?

[hallo there]

When it finally works we would change the disks daily. Now for test purpose I use always the same disk.

Thanks and regards
HT

[DGrinev]

You should have another five restore points on the other external disk before the retention policy will be applied. Thanks!

[hallo there]

Hallo again DGrinev,

what is if we would decide to not use one of the disks anymore? Would on the other disks no old backup any overwritten?

Thanks for helping
HT

[DGrinev]

I am not sure I fully understand your question.
Veeam B&R will remove the information about the missing restore points from the database according to the retention policy, but the backup files on that disk will stay.

Please review this KB1154 about the rotated drives.

Thanks!