Synthetic fulls?

[stevecous]

Hi

Looking at trying to manage our backup windows and looking to reduce the time taken for thr weekend full backups. I am looking at the synthetic full backups but have some questions.

1. Am I write in thinking that a synthetic full backup will back up incrementally and then on the specified day merge to previos increaments to create a full backup from which it then creates increments until the next full synthetic full?

2. Does this then remove the original increments or does it keep these and the previous synthetic full backups based on the 'Restore points to keep on disk' specified.

3. Also is this process typically heavy on the repository I/O. Is it typically quicker than createing a full back?

Thanks
Steve

[foggy]

1. Am I write in thinking that a synthetic full backup will back up incrementally and then on the specified day merge to previos increaments to create a full backup from which it then creates increments until the next full synthetic full?

You are right. Btw, backup methods are fully covered in the corresponding user guide chapter (p.26).

2. Does this then remove the original increments or does it keep these and the previous synthetic full backups based on the 'Restore points to keep on disk' specified.

Restore points are kept according to the retention policy settings.

3. Also is this process typically heavy on the repository I/O. Is it typically quicker than createing a full back?

Synthetic full typically requires the same time as active full (can be faster on fast target storage), but puts more stress on the target storage and less stress on production storage comparing to active full. Please look at this blog post for more details.

[stevecous]

Thanks, Thats exactly what I needed to know.