Perform active fulls periodically

[andyboy]

My current backup job is set to 10 restore points, running in Reversed incremental mode and If I wanted to enable the option for "Perform active full backup periodically", will there be 10 "active full" backup files sitting on my repository? The current .vbk file now is about 2TB and we are looking to retain at least 30 days of one full backup for archiving purposes.

I tried creating a Backup Copy job (from infrastructure and from backups) but it always gets stuck with: "Restore point is located in backup file with different block size". To my understanding, I would need to create a Active Full job first in order to get the Backup Copy Job to work. Is that right?

[foggy]

My current backup job is set to 10 restore points, running in Reversed incremental mode and If I wanted to enable the option for "Perform active full backup periodically", will there be 10 "active full" backup files sitting on my repository? The current .vbk file now is about 2TB and we are looking to retain at least 30 days of one full backup for archiving purposes.

No, active full will be performed according to the schedule you specify for it, while incremental restore points will be created on other job runs. Each active full will start the backup chain anew, however, the number of restore points will always meet the specified retention settings. Actually, no need to run active fulls frequently with reversed incremental mode, since it is designed with long incremental chains in mind.

I tried creating a Backup Copy job (from infrastructure and from backups) but it always gets stuck with: "Restore point is located in backup file with different block size". To my understanding, I would need to create a Active Full job first in order to get the Backup Copy Job to work. Is that right?

Yes, if you change the block size, it will be applied after the new full backup takes place. There are a couple of other workarounds though.

[andyboy]

So if I enable the active full, run it every last saturday of the month, then the next last saturday of the month runs, will the previous active full get deleted?

[Vitaliy S.]

The oldest restore point in your backup chain will be deleted. Your previous active full will be deleted once it falls out of the configured retention policy.

[andyboy]

My retention policy is set to 10, so then I'll have 10 full backups?

[Vitaliy S.]

Not exactly, retention policy applies to the entire job, not only to the active full runs.

Since you're using reversed incremental mode and you run your job on daily basis, you will have 1 VBK + 9 VRB files on the repository. When active full backup time comes, you will have 1 VBK (active full) + 1 VBK (reversed incremental) + 8 VRBs.

[andyboy]

Gotcha. If my job runs Monday-Friday only and then I perform an active full backup every Saturday, when/what time will that active full run?

[Vitaliy S.]

At the time configured to run your job during Mon-Fri. Thanks!