Newb to tape backup needs advise

[ToddM]

I currently backup using Veeam to an onsite repository, as well as sending backup copies to a remote repository. My boss is worried about ransomware and so asked for tape backups as well, so we could have some air-gapped backups. The plan is to rely on the normal backups and backup copies for restoring files and DR, and only resort to the tapes if our other backups were compromised with ransomware.
We want a monthly full-backup that we can keep somewhere safe, and take a new full-backup each month. After 6 months we would recycle the first backup. The worry is that if the malware was dormant for a while before becoming active it could possibly be replicated in the backups, and we're willing to go back six months if need be to get a clean copy.

Most of the VM's we back up aren't that big and it's no problem getting full backups of all the servers to tape over the weekend. The file serve is a different issue. It's about 12TB in size, and after three days it was only 66% done. I had to stop it because the normal backups were getting suspended an we were missing our RPO's. Obviously, doing one massive full-backup of the file server isn't going to work since we can't suspend normal backups for 4-5 days. If I set the job to not suspend normal backups, then the tape job gets interrupted.

The file server backup is a forever forward incremental with 120 restore points (backup happens every 12 hours, so we can restore back to 60 days).
Like I said, I'm a newb at using tape, so I could use some advise on how to go about achieving my objective with the tape backup, while still keeping to the normal backup schedule. I do have the incremental backups to tape checked - maybe I need to disable that? I wasn't sure if I needed that or not.

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi Todd,

If you have Full + increments ticked in the tape job, then you offload entire chain every time, not just a single Monthly full. 120 restore points you say, huh?
Also, if you have 120 restore points and offload Full backup(with all other default settings), that means you are offloading 120-days-old Full to tape - make sure that is intended by your design.
Otherwise, if you want tape job to offload (only!) Full backup on Day Z every month, you can use Veeam Tape's Virtual Full functionality. Long story short, you don't need full backup on disk to have one on tape.

One more thing to check: take your full backup size(.vbk) and your LTO drive|cartridge write speed - that will give you rough estimate of time needed in perfect conditions to write that backup to tape.

Hope that helps!

/Cheers!

[TinchoB]

Hello,
I´m also new.
I intend to schedule daily backup incremental to disk with a weekly active full.
Then I need to copy the full to tape (al least once a week). According to the documentation I should link the Copy to tape JOB with the backup to disk in order to start after it finishes.
My question is, what is the better way to set up the copy to tape JOB en order to copy the files needed ?

For example, in other software like BackupExec, you could define backup to disk JOBs and then asociate specific duplication to tape for incrementals or for full separately, and after the B2D ended (so you could select if copy fulls, incrementals or both).

In VEEAM can you specify to only copy the last Active full from disc ? Or it will copy all the contents ? Im a little confused about how VEEAM JOBs can manage these situations...

Thanks.

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi Martin.

It is pretty much the same here in Veeam.

You can choose to link jobs(Secondary Destination tab of B2Disk job), or have a separately controlled schedule, say B2d runs Mon-Fri, B2T run Saturdays.
In the B2T job settings there is an "Incremental backup" tab, which can be selected(if you want incremental backups to be offloaded) or unticked(if you want only full backups on tape).
Also check Virtual Full link from my previous post, that will allow you to have full backup on tape even if there is none on disk.

/Cheers!

[TinchoB]

Hi Egor,
thanks for your answer ! I´ll try !

Another question. I´ve read in this forum user using ReFS with problems or slow performance when copying or backing up from repoitory to Tape. Some of them also stated gave up and changed from ReFS to NTFS and solved them. My server has 64GB RAM and 100TB usable space, Windows 2019 LTSC (windows updates applied). Should I go for ReFS or stay with NTFS ?

Regards

[Egor Yakovlev]

Well, ReFS matures with each update Microsoft brings in and they do fix errors brought up by community and we do generally recommend to use ReFS over NTFS.
ReFS benefits disk-based backups in its core, with stuff like Zero-Space Full backups, or instant-Synthetic Full backups using Fast Clone which can dramatically change your space needed for storing backups.
Make sure you are aware of other Microsoft's ReFS limitations that might also apply to your infrastructure.