remove GFS archive

[kte]

Is there a way to remove the GFS archives ??
Because I tried to use the windows dedup 2012 R2 on the GFS volume but because it is 64 TB it seems the VSS is craching and I don't know if the deduo is working then

Koen

[foggy]

Apart from being deleted according to retention, these restore points can be deleted only manually.

[kte]

so if I take an archive for each month and I want to keep it 12 month I can 't delete it?

Koen

[Gostev]

Why not.

[kte]

i there a way in the interface to delete a gfs of a copy job?
without having to wait that the retention expires or remove the file on disk?

k

[foggy]

You can set the number of monthly backups to zero (or even clear the GFS check box) and probably those restore points will be deleted (since they do not meet the retention). Haven't tested that, but you can try.

[martynuk]

I am having a similar issue. We originally had copy jobs set to keep 2 weekly GFS backups. We subsequently decided not to keep any GFS backups at all, and de-selected the "Keep the following restore points for archival purposes". The two GFS weekly backups remain on disk and in the database several weeks later. I can't seem to get rid of them. If I try to set the weekly GFS restore points to zero I can't save the job ("Select at least one restore point for archival purposes"). How can I cleanly remove these obsolete GFS restore points from disk and database?

[foggy]

Martin, please install the Veeam B&R v7 R2 update, it allows setting all the GFS values to zero. Should help.

[martynuk]

Sorry, should have mentioned we are running v7 R2 already. Will not accept 0 for all four GFS values. At least one has to have a value.

[foggy]

Sorry, for some reason I thought it was possible. Then what if you set, for example, yearly to 1, having all the rest set to zero?

[martynuk]

I had tried that, but still left the old weekly archives. I will give this another try, but with 1 monthly selected this time. Hopefully I won't get stuck with a monthly archive that I can't get rid of as well.

[martynuk]

Tried setting GFS to 0 weekly and 1 monthly. Re-ran the linked backup job. Copy job ran afterwards. Progress screen includes message "Starting full backup transformation (GFS)" and "Full backup transformation completed successfully". Old weekly archive files still remain.

[Gostev]

What happens if you just disable GFS processing completely? Seems like this is what you are trying to do anyway by setting all values to zero.

[foggy]

I've asked QC to verify this internally and they've confirmed that the number of GFS restore points is maintained according to the specified values. Weekly fulls are deleted right during the next job run after setting the corresponding value to zero. If you are observing different behavior, then it's time to contact support to investigate this.

Btw, do you see these weekly restore points listed when you open backup properties under Backups > Disk node?

[foggy]

Well, further testing shows that there's currently an issue with the check box itself - disabling GFS retention does not actually delete GFS restore points but marks each of them as current full instead, leaving them reside in repository. Since you've initially cleared the check box, this prevented weekly restore points from being deleted even after setting their count to zero (since they were already marked as current and were not considered as GFS anymore).

The issue should be addressed in the next updates, as a workaround you can delete restore points manually and ask support for assistance in clearing corresponding records from the database.

[martynuk]

OK, thanks foggy.