Running an active full backup creates a 2nd VBK? Frustrated

[davidb1234]

I was told that using Reverse Incremental backups would only keep one full VBK file on backup storage. I was also told that I should run periodic active full backups to refresh this data. This was explained during product demo with Veeam as well as mentioned by support.

So we implemented this process and come to find out that running a periodic active full backup does not in fact do this. It creates a seperate full backup VBK file on the backup drive so it completely removes any benefit to using the reverse incremental process for storing only 1 full backup copy of the most recent data.

Why does Veeam not just refresh the full backup data with the most recent data? Why is an entirely new VBK kept on the target storage? And if this is the case which VBK file has the good refreshed data(the one generated each day going forward or the one that exists from the day the active backup was run?)

If I have the job set to 180 restore points with an active full once per month does that mean after 6 months I will have 6 full size VBK files stored?

[dellock6]

Hi David,
what you are experiencing is completely expected. Active full running in a reverse incremental creates separated full backups,besides the last execution of the reverse incremental itself. A different idea could be to let only reverse incremental run without the active full, and then with a simple script copy the last full of the reverse in a different location, so the backup will only run once per day.
If you want to have a monthly full backup as per your last phrase, is it completely expected also to have 6 full backups!
Luca.

[Gostev]

Why does Veeam not just refresh the full backup data with the most recent data? Why is an entirely new VBK kept on the target storage?

This way, the newly created full backup is created from only actual blocks of the current state of all virtual machines. For example, if some VM is no longer included in the backup job, then your new VBK will be much smaller. Whereas without such refresh process, VBK will remain the same in size after you remove a VM from the job (only the block belonging to said VM will be marked as unused, so that they could be reused by new data). In most file systems, the only way to reduce the file in size is to re-create it - which is exactly what active full is doing.

Theoretically, I see no reason why we could not add the behavior you expected to the product as an option, but it was never requested before in all these years.

And if this is the case which VBK file has the good refreshed data(the one generated each day going forward or the one that exists from the day the active backup was run?)

[the one that exists from the day the active backup was run] will be updated each day going forward to contain the good refreshed data.

[Davd]

gostev

I got the same explanation from Veeam support as well. They said that running an Active full backup would create an additional full file so that during one day we would have two full backup files, but during next automatic session it would transform the old full file to rollback and I would end up with only one full. And when it didn't happen and I replied to support, and another support person confirmed that it’s not supposed to do so.

It would be good to have such a feature in future version of Veeam. And not only from production/backup point of view. Sometimes there are issues with backups, like broken CBT or bugs in Veeam application (we experienced such a bug when we upgraded to Veeam v.6) and where the only solution that Veeam support provided was to run a new full backup. Since we only do backups to disk, we are limited on space and cannot store several full backup files for all backup jobs which forced us to lover retention point during a period of time. With transform function in Veeam, we would be able to run a full backup to fix such issues and would only need to live with several full backup files during one day, until its transformed into rollback on next run. So yes please

[dellock6]

Hi David,
out of curiosity have you evaluated a deduplication appliance to ease the disk space problems and regain higher retention space?

[Davd]

Hi Luca,

We are two David in this thread that had this issue so I am not sure which one is the target But our budget limit doesn't allow us to go with dedupe appliance.

[dellock6]

Ops, sorry, anyway my question was a reply to your last message, so you already replied correctly

[cstemaly]

I have a quick follow up question on this topic. I had a large backup that failed SureBackup verification. Support instructed me to run an Active full, which is running right now. I noticed that it created a new vbk file, which led me here, because when it's all said and done this file is going to pinch me for space down the road. Can I delete the old vbk backup when this one is complete? If not then, when can I delete the other vbk file, if at all? I think it would have been better space-wise to just create the job all over again, but I'd lose restore points....

[veremin]

Yep, you’re completely right a full backup is playing the role of independent restore point and not supposed to overwrite previous/current full backup.

Can I delete the old vbk backup when this one is complete?

Generally speaking, yes, you can. Nevertheless, in this case you’ll lose all restore points that are dependent on this full backup.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.