Question about tape backup

[michaelryancook]

I have a backup job "prod backup" that is using reverse incremental mode. I have configured an active full for the third Sunday of the month. I have a tape backup job that is using "prod backup" as the backup files. I do not have process incrementals checked. If I run the tape job on the 4th Sunday of the month how much data would I expect to be written to tape? "Prod backup" has a full backup of 3.3 TB.

My assumption was that the tape job would back up the most recent .vbk of 3.3 TB. The one at the end of the reverse incremental change. However my tape backup job ran out of tape after hitting 4.1 TB filling three tapes. Why is it backing up more than just the most recent .vbk? Does it actually do the last full of 3.3 TB plus the incrementals from that one until the most recent .vbk of again 3.3 TB? Even though I have not checked process incrementals? I thought that worse case scenario it would write the last active full to tape. That would be fine as well. Sorry this is not well written but I am quite confused at this time.

[michaelryancook]

I think I have answered my own question. It is backing up all .vbk files since the last tape backup. As there was the active full on 4/18 and the current .vbk on 4/26 it tried to put both to tape. I will need twice as many tapes as I expected unless I ensure the tape job runs after the active full but before the next reverse incremental is run.

Am I understanding this correctly? If so is there not a way to tell it to only backup the latest .vbk or better yet just the most recent active full?

[phil-ch]

Hi Michael

Please make sure that you have patch #1 installed. In the RTM version is a bug with reverse incremental jobs to tape.

Did you create the tape job before you had multiple full backups? If yes, try to create a new tape job and choose the reverse incremental job. Now you should get a pop-up which is asking to copy "all" or just the "latest" full backup to the tape. Choose latest and you are happy.

Now my question to the veeam devs: Is it possible to change this behavior? It would be nice if this would be a changeable option in the advanced section. I had to recreate 20 tape jobs because I created them before any full backups were in the repository. Veeam is not asking you if you haven't multiple fulls in the repository. Even it's not possible to remove and re-add the source job. Only delete the jobs and recreate them will help.

Cheers
Phil

[veremin]

Am I understanding this correctly?

Yes.

If so is there not a way to tell it to only backup the latest .vbk or better yet just the most recent active full?

Scripting might help in this case or switching to combination of forward forever incremental mode and virtual synthesized full backup.

Thanks.

[michaelryancook]

Thank you for both your replies.

I do have patch 1 installed and yes my job was created before I had multiple fulls in the repo. My understanding from reading was that the "only process latest" option when creating a new tape job only pertained to the first run of the job and subsequent jobs would have the same "issue" as I currently have where the last active full and the most recent reverse incremental produced .vbk would both get backed up to tape. Am I correct in this understanding or would phil-ch's recommendation of creating a new job, and selecting latest, cause tape jobs to only backup the latest .vbk?

If not I will just ensure we run the tape job right after the active full going forward.

[veremin]

Am I correct in this understanding?

Correct.

If not I will just ensure we run the tape job right after the active full going forward.

But even in this case the source job will have two .vbks which then will be archived to tapes.

Thanks.

[michaelryancook]

Thanks again for confirming Vladimir.

[veremin]

You're welcome. Should other help be needed, let us know.