Monthly or Yearly Retention Policy - what happens

[pkacz]

Hello,
I have a question about long-term retention policies.
Let’s assume we have:
Monthly backups taken on the last day of each month
Yearly backups taken on the last day of the year

Now, suppose a file is saved on a server and is included in the monthly full backup on June 30. Later, the file is deleted by a user sometime early in September. When the monthly full backup runs on September 30, my understanding is that the file will not exist in the September monthly backup. The file will still exist in the June monthly backup. Is that correct?

Similarly, for a yearly backup taken on December 31:
Does that backup contain only the data that exists on the server on that specific day, or are backups somehow merged so that the yearly backup also includes files captured in daily, weekly, or monthly backups—even if those files were deleted before December 31?

regards,
peter

[chris.childerhose]

To answer your first question, yes the file would be in the June monthly backup. The Yearly backup will depend on how you set things up with GFS. There is an article on the Veeam Community here that explains GFS - https://community.veeam.com/blogs-and-p ... re-it-7483

Also check here from the help - https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbr/u ... tml?ver=13

[pkacz]

Thank you, Chris.
I read both articles but they don't answer my question.
Our typical long term retention policy and GFS is configured as follows: 4 weekly, 24 monthly, 7 yearly

So, my question is
Does that yearly backup contain only the data that exists on the server on that specific day, or are backups somehow merged so that the yearly backup also includes files captured in daily, weekly, or monthly backups—even if those files were deleted before December 31?

[chris.childerhose]

@pkacz

Ah I gotcha now. Yes the date of the Yearly backup that is taken is what will be contained in that backup point. A GFS Yearly does not roll up all weekly/monthly backups from previous ones. Does that make sense?

Think of GFS like a snapshot of the VM’s state

If a file was deleted in March and your yearly backup is taken on December 31:

The file will not appear in the yearly backup

It would still exist in any restore point taken before the deletion (daily/weekly/monthly)

GFS simply flags certain full backups for longer retention — it does not change their content.