Disable Virtual full

[bertdhont]

Hello,

Is there a way to disable virtual full when doing tape offload of a forever forward incremental source job?

I have 2 situations where I would like to disable the virtual full:
First is a case where we do a tape offload of a backup copy job (7 restore points, no GFS restore points).
What I want is Veeam to place the whole chain (1 x VBK + 6 x VIB) on tape.

Second case is a forever forward incremental backup job with 5 restore points (1 full, 4 incrementals).
Here also, I want Veeam to copy that current chain (full + incrementals) to tape, as is!

Reason why I don't want Veeam to create a virtual full on tape, is because tape offload is much slower when creating the virtual full...

[Dima P.]

Hello Bert,

It's not possible to disable virtual full backup when source job is in forever forward backup mode. Mind me asking what would be the desired tape retention for both cases (any chance tape will become expired before the next tape out)? Thanks!

[bertdhont]

Hello Dmitry,

Tape retention is in both cases minimum 3 weeks....

[soncscy]

Hey Bert,

Why not just do a full File to Tape job in your case? You want the weekly chain each week it sounds, the files are there, so just use File to Tape?

[Dima P.]

File to tape sounds like a good workaround for such case, just keep in mind that entire backup chain will be placed to tape every job run due to the backup files being modified.

[bertdhont]

Ok,
File to tape could be an option, but then I have no trace of what VM's are placed on what tape...

[Dima P.]

You can see what files are on the tape media via Files node of Veeam B&R console. Will that help? Cheers!

[DataDefender]

Is this still the way to go in 2024 with Veeam 12.x? Basically, I want my complete Forever Forward Incremental backup chain (30 days retention) written to tape on a new media set each Sunday (overwrite protection 4 weeks, so that I have 4 media sets rotating). I thought Backup to Tape jobs were the way to go, but I cannot figure out how to do it.

[HannesK]

Hello,
it's the same in V12 and "file to tape" is still the way to go.

Best regards,
Hannes

[DataDefender]

Hey Hannes,

thx for your feedback. I will set up a File to Tape Job accordingly.

Best,
DD