GFS Media pool with daily incremental

[TaylorB]

Reading the user guide for V11, as well as the configuration screens, I am a bit confused to how Veeam handles daily incremental files for the GFS pool. I find multiple references saying, "If the source job creates an incremental backup, the GFS job synthesizes a virtual full backup." I definitely do not want to burn 20 tapes and 20 extra hours for a virtual full every night just to write an incremental backup, when it currently takes 2. Is this the case, or am I reading it wrong?

Honestly, I think it would be better if we could send incrementals to another regular short term pool and save the GFS buckets for the full backup files, as you do with jobs going to regular pools. I was disappointed to see that option removed when I chose a GFS pool as the target.

[HannesK]

Hello,

I definitely do not want to burn 20 tapes and 20 extra hours for a virtual full every night

agree and it's not required Daily backups are incremental backups (see here)

Honestly, I think it would be better if we could send incrementals to another regular short term pool and save the GFS buckets for the full backup files, as you do with jobs going to regular pools. I was disappointed to see that option removed when I chose a GFS pool as the target.

I got lost here. If you like different media pools for everything, then classic media pools can be used. GFS media pools simplify things, but they are not mandatory.

Best regards,
Hannes

[JTT]

But this is confusing: "If the source job creates an incremental backup, the GFS job synthesizes a virtual full backup."
What does it mean by virtual full, like does it still require as much tape space as a full?

[david.domask]

Hi JTT,

Check our User Guide page here for more details on Virtual Fulls.

In brief, these do not require space on the repository* for a full backup as Virtual full will "stream" data from existing restore points on disk to tape and create a full backup directly on tape.

*The Virtual Full process utilizes a special file .VSB to act as a "block map" to know which blocks from which restore points are needed for the Virtual Full on tape. The .VSB file should be quite small, I've never seen the .VSB bigger than 1GB for even rather large machines/backup chains