Feature Request: Backup all files from one tape

[Ulrich Haucke]

Hi everyone,

I have created a backup job for writing all files to tape. Now I've tried a restore an the result was, that I needed more than one tape for restore. I have called the support an they told me, that this behavior is by design: The restore process does not restore the files from a backup set but every file that was ever stored on the server. So for ancient deleted files I have to insert additional tapes just to complete the restore job. The case is 01722428.
I need a feature to restore all files that are written to a backup set without the old files. I don't know the reason, why the restore is implemented this way but the actual behavior sounds very useless to me.

Software ist Veeam Backup & Replication 9.0 Version 9.0.0.1491

Best
Ulrich Haucke

[Shestakov]

Hi Ulrich and welcome to the community!

Indeed if your backups didn`t fit on a single tape, you need several of them to perform a restore what seems logical.
If you want to use just a single tape for restore, make sure all the chain is on the same tape. To incarnate it, set an option to Automatically create new media set daily and choose the day and time before the new chain is written on the tape.

The support case is in German, so could you describe the type and schedule of the tape job you use?
Thanks!

[Ulrich Haucke]

Hello Mr Shestakov,

unfortunately it is not logical: We are not using incremental backup an your colleague has already checked if the option for creating a new media set is turned on. I know, that the case is in German, so I translate it for you:

======================

Good day Mr Haucke,

so, here is the final result, which we have also tested with our QA engineer:

It's by design.

The problem is, that if you choose a directory for a restore, veeam tries to restore ALL files from this directory - even those who have been deleted.

To do this veeam searches in the DB, what files where in the folder and then, after the restore is prepared, it restores the following list:

Restore Point 14.04. existing files:
1.txt
2.txt
3.txt
Restore Point 13.04. existing files:

1.txt
2.txt
4.txt

Need to restore:

1.txt, state 14.04.
2.txt, state 14.04.
3.txt, state 14.04.
4.txt, state 13.04.

So it need most of all earlier tapes. To get around this, you have to create a new veeam instance (empty SQL DB), create the tape infrastructure to restore without the information of the DB.

The alternative - choose the files direct, not the folder for the restore.

We are all in the support unhappy with this concept. To change it please write a feature request to our forum.

I hope, that this constellation will be optimized in the next version of veeam.

If you have further questions, I'll be glad to answer it.

Best regards,
Dimitry Rozhdestvenskiy
Veeam Customer Support

=====

Unfortunately the first alternative is complex and takes some time. The second will be useless in case of disaster recovery.
So can you please pass this feature request to the development? Thank you.

Best,
Ulrich Haucke

[Dima P.]

Hello Ulrich,

Indeed this is the known issue (can’t call it ‘by design’ myself since we have plans to correct this behavior). I think in case of disaster recovery you are going to restore all the files from the backup (so all the tapes from media set are required anyway), right? Can you please elaborate why single file or multiple file selection during recovery is not an option for daily restore tasks? Thanks.

[Ulrich Haucke]

Hello,

well indeed it is possible to restore a single file from the tape. Anyway, we have volume shadow copy turned on, so we probably never need to restore a file in this way. The main reason for the backup ist archival purpose and disaster recovery.

[Dima P.]

Thanks Ulrich! As I’ve said before we plan to correct this behavior in upcoming versions of the product.