Daily full backup to tape without backup to disk previously

[muller7]

Hello!

I am trying to configure a daily full backup to tape without backup to disk previously, but without sucess.

I don't want to backup to a STORAGE/disk, then backup to a tape.

I just want to backup full Hyper-V virtual machines direct to a tape, one tape for each weekday, 5 tapes in total.

Can I do this?

Thank you!

[Dima P.]

Hello and welcome to RnD forums muller7!

Veeam B&R provides the option to backup existing backups to tape and does not have direct VM to tape capabilities, so disk to disk to tape or backup to tape is the approach supported by Veeam B&R. For direct backup to tape you can create file to tape jobs but it allows you to tape out only specific files and folders from the source server. Hope that helps!

[muller7]

Hello, thank you!

I configured two backups:

Hyper-V Backup - runs at 7pm on weekdays
Backup to tape - runs after Hyper-V Backup

The Hyper-V Backup I configured:

Storage tab > Advanced > Backup mode: reverse incremental (slower) > scheduled at 7pm on weekdays. For have ever a full backup (I read old topics...)

I want run a full backup every weekday, to the HD, and to the tape.

I configured 5 tapes in a Media Pool named "Monday to Friday tapes"...

My drive supports just one tape. So I configured the backup to tape job to eject the tape after the backup.

Some questions:

1. Every weekday I remove the ejected tape and insert the new tape, I need to inventory after insert the tape, or the job will do this automatically. I don't know this yet because I have done just a job, today will be the second job.

2. When the Hyper-V backup run, the old files (from the previously backups) will be cleaned, or I will need much more space on the HD for the backup run? I am afraid because I have 1 TB in total, and the first backup have 579 GB. Free is ~ 400 GB. So I don't know if I will need more space.

I used to BE 2012 to backup to tape, but even the latest version of this software, is more confused, and the Veeam is so more friendly

Do you have any tips for me? If I like veeam, I will buy a enterprise license. I have 12 Hyper-V VMS... And want to backup occasionally files from a storage to tapes.

Thank you so much!

[muller7]

I tested several options, unfortunately all options create incremental files. I simply want to do a daily full backup to hard drive, then a daily full backup to tape. I want to have a full backup on tape every day, with or without incrementals, but that I can only recover from tape, in case ransomware or something like that happens, but unfortunately it's very difficult... Incremental files insist on being created.

what i tried:

1. I tried the incremental reverse backup, which took absurdly long. 1:30 am The first full backup, which you did on Friday, for example, took 1 hour, so it took longer to do the incremental reverse backup than the full backup.

2. I tried synthetic backup with every day scheduled.

3. Tried active backup with every day scheduled.

All options generated incremental files and points.

I just want the backup to be a single, complete file, and then copy it to tape on the secondary backup linked to the main backup.

Maybe the option is for me to automatically delete the files from the backup every time before starting the daily full backup? If yes, how to do it?

Please help me! I believe it should be easier... I'm taking a beating.

[Dima P.]

Hello muller7,

Storage tab > Advanced > Backup mode: reverse incremental (slower) > scheduled at 7pm on weekdays. For have ever a full backup (I read old topics...)

With reversed incremental you will have a full backup every day, so you need to run tape job every day if you want to tape out all full backups.

1. Every weekday I remove the ejected tape and insert the new tape, I need to inventory after insert the tape, or the job will do this automatically. I don't know this yet because I have done just a job, today will be the second job.

Inventory is required to recognize the tape media, so yes.

2. When the Hyper-V backup run, the old files (from the previously backups) will be cleaned, or I will need much more space on the HD for the backup run? I am afraid because I have 1 TB in total, and the first backup have 579 GB. Free is ~ 400 GB. So I don't know if I will need more space.

Restore points should be removed according to the retention you set in the primary job settings.

Maybe the option is for me to automatically delete the files from the backup every time before starting the daily full backup? If yes, how to do it?

It's not required, tape job is fully independent from the primary backup job retention. You can keep backups on disk as long as you need (with it's own retention) and set it's own retention for tapes.

I just want the backup to be a single, complete file, and then copy it to tape on the secondary backup linked to the main backup.

To clarify, you need a full backup every day on tape or you want weekly full followed by daily incremental backups on tape?

[muller7]

Hello muller7,

With reversed incremental you will have a full backup every day, so you need to run tape job every day if you want to tape out all full backups.

Inventory is required to recognize the tape media, so yes.

Restore points should be removed according to the retention you set in the primary job settings.

It's not required, tape job is fully independent from the primary backup job retention. You can keep backups on disk as long as you need (with it's own retention) and set it's own retention for tapes.

To clarify, you need a full backup every day on tape or you want weekly full followed by daily incremental backups on tape?

@Dima P. I achieved my goals. I have the following two jobs running daily on weekdays:

-Full Daily Virtual Machines to HD (incremental (recommended), create synthetic full backups periodically, monday to friday)
and after the first job:
-Full Daily Virtual Machines to tape

I just have another problem, but I wrote on other post.

Thank you so much!