NAS to Tape Full vs Incremental

[PeteMan]

Hi - I am new to Veeam and have successfully completed a full backup of my Synology NAS files and I have also setup weekly incremental backups. I saw something about forever incremental backups but don't see how they work or if this is something that I have to set up.

What I would like to do is have my full backup completed every 6 months as our data doesn't change much but a weekly or even daily backup that I would not have to go back through all of the tapes to recover all of the data if there is major data lost.

That said "Incremental" doesn't seem to be the right term, I would like to have a differential backup so that all of the difference from the full backup are backed up on a regular basis. Is this done by the settings of the Media set or expiration of the data retention?

So be clear I would like to be able to take my full backup, do either a daily or weekly backup and be able to restore all of the files without having to go back lets say 20 tapes if something would happen in 4 months from now?

Is this possible?

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums

first of all: Veeam is built for image based backups of VMs, physical machines and NAS data to disk. I emphasize: to disk

As you managed to bring your NAS to tape with "file-to-tape" functionality, I assume that it is a very small filer. So that might work. But the software is not built for that!

When we talk about incremental forever backups, then we talk about backup to disk with our NAS-backup functionality: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=100

I recommend the following
1) check our NAS backup functionality
2) check the size of your SQL database. If you use the built-in SQL express, then chances are high, that you hit the 10GB limit with the file-to-tape jobs
3) if you really want to stick with file-to-tape: do regular full backups to avoid the situation you describe with the 20 tapes for restore


Best regards,
Hannes

[PeteMan]

Thank you @Hannesk - I see what you are saying about most of the functionality being geared towards Disk / Disks. That said I thought that a lot of the Tape Functionality was recently added in Version 10? As mentioned I am new to this and I find information scattered all over the place.

Can you enlighten me how the Retention works on the Tape Pools? If I would have an Incremental pool and a Full Backup pool and I have the Incremental pool expire in say a month would that force another lets call it Full Incremental Backup (from the last full backup)?

I don't see where I can check the size out of my SQL Database, I do a search and see that some have a database tab. I don't. It is because I am only using the Backup / Replication App in my Tape System? I didn't do a full install but let it install all of the dependencies of course.

[HannesK]

That said I thought that a lot of the Tape Functionality was recently added in Version 10?

no, not really. We improved speed, as a side-effect of something else. But nothing really new.

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=100 should help with media pool retention. The pool does not force anything. It's the tape job schedule that decides about full / incremental backup: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=100

If you never worked with MS SQL, then I would recommend to install SQL management studio. Or just use a internet search engine of your choice how to use SQLcmd on the console

[Spongebob.]

Hi

Im a complete newbie to Veeam but Ive used many other Backup Systems in the past.

Im just setting up my first Veeam Server with a Tape changer library.
Its a Windows 10 Backup Server with a Fujitsu Siemens 24 Slot LTO7 Tape Changer attached with 2 Tape drives inside.

The purpose of all this is to make Backups of our Synology NAS System (240TB, 40TB Used, mostly very large static files).

Heres my questions:
- In other backup solutions I could always backup straight from the source to the tapes (Backup Exec for example).
In Veeam I understand I must make a backup into a repository first and then from there I can dump the data to tape with a "Backup to tape job".
- is this correct?
Question: if so, what if I dont have enough diskspace for a huge "backup repository"? My Synology NAS is 240TB big, the disk on my Backup Server is only 20TB big.
So if I put the repository on the Backup Server itself, it may soon be full right? What then? Is Veeam smart enough to then dump the stuff to tape to make some room?
Or will this be an actual Problem, i.e. if the Synology NAS gets fuller, I will need the same space in Harddisks for the Repositories, as my original Synology NAS to create the repository first which I then dump to Tape with a tape job?
Is that not inefficient? I would seem to need twice the diskspace to backup 240TB to Tape?
Question - Or should I put the Repository on the Synology NAS itself? But then again that would reduce the NAS capacity from 240TB to probably 120TB?
Question - Im in the understanding a repository also contains the backed up data itself and not just a catalog of the files to be backed up yes?

Question - Would the Tape Backup Job "File to Tape" be the solution?
With this method, the manual says files will be archived to tape directly.
Question: With the word "archived", do they mean the originals will be deleted by the job once the files are on tape? if yes can I stop that? I want the originals to stay intact.
Question: When you create a job like that, in the comments, Veeam recomends "File to tape jobs are designed for copying backups to tape, and thus work best with fewer of larger files. We do not recommend using them as a general-purpose NAS backup solution for scalability rerasons".
I dont understand what they mean by this.
Why shouldnt I use that job type? That seems to be what I want without an intermediate "Repository"?

Thank you for your help!
Spongebob from Germany

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums.

I merged your question to a very similar one. Please see the answers above.

NDMP could be a solution, but as far as I see, Synology doesn't support NDMP.

We are working on improvements to back up filers directly, but for now I would say "try it out and see whether it works for you with multiple small jobs". We definitely do not recommend 240TB to tape with "file-to-tape".

Best regards,
Hannes

[Spongebob.]

Thank you all for your so helpful answers.

Hannes:
"We definitely do not recommend 240TB to tape with "file-to-tape"."

Why not?

What would be the issue (apart from the size of the SQL Database).

thanks
best
Spongebob.

[Dima P.]

Spongebob,

For such amount of data you must have a dedicated SQL server (not the SQL Server Express which is bundled with Veeam B&R Setup). Not required, but strongly recommended to keep Veeam B&R database on SSD disk (otherwise file to tape jobs may suffer from SQL performance). Apart from that Hannes was mostly worried about overall performance of file to tape job, as it's currently not optimized to work with huge amount of objects, but I'd say if you are good with SQL database requirements you can give it a spin.

We have more optimizations for file to tape performance planned for next versions.

[Spongebob.]

Okay thank you very much.

Where exactly in Veeam can I look to see how large the local sql database has become?

That way I can judge if I need to use an external sql database for all this (this would probably also be available in my organisation).

Thanks alot everyone for your help! Much appreciated!

Spongebob from the wonderful country of Germany.

[Spongebob.]

Oh and by the way; the nature of my data is that 90% of it remains static and even in 240TB we have only "few files that are large" as we process large images. We dont have millions of files in general...perhaps 1 million in absolute total ever.

[HannesK]

Hello,
I usually use SQL management studio and right-click on the database (it's self-explaining)

as an alternative you can also use the command line. I just combined https://www.veeam.com/kb1471 with https://stackoverflow.com/questions/180 ... abase-size

Code: Select all

sqlcmd -S (local)\VEEAMSQL2016
use VeeamBackup
exec sp_spaceused
go

if you really have only 1 million files, then I'm optimistic that File-to-tape can work. With 240TB I expected hundreds of millions of files

Best regards,
Hannes

[Spongebob.]

Ill try that thank you