MS SQL synthetic fulls

[kuhn]

Hello,
I am setting up MS SQL backups (agent level) and wondering what the best settings would be as far as backups go. We currently do forever incremental (with another backup solution) and 15-minute transaction log backups. With switching to Veeam I was thinking a weekly full, daily incremental, and 15-minute transaction log. With the transaction log backups can I utilize the synthetic full instead of the active full backup? Just wondering what the best approach would be here. Thanks in advance!

[PetrM]

Hello and Welcome to Veeam R&D Forums!

Actually, the choice of the full backup creation method does not depend on the application you want to process, it is solely dictated by the repository type. I believe a good summary is outlined in the best practices guide. Furthermore, transaction log backups have a separate backup chain and a retention policy mechanism. They are stored in .vlb files, which are usually located in the same folder where the image-level backup files reside (unless you're using SOBR). You can find more information about retention for database log backups on this page.

If you have fast disks or REFS/XFS on the target, I recommend using the synthetic backup.

Thanks!