When is a full backup ran?

[rizon218]

I use the Community version of Veeam 9.5 at home and had a quick question about the circumstances under which Veeam decides to run a full backup on a file to tape job. This job is not scheduled in any way and is only manually run when I decide I have added/changed sufficient files to warrant a backup.

I have a job created to back up my media library to an LTO6 library. Ideally, I would just want to run the full backup once, and then run incremental backups for any added or changed files.

I have successfully ran the full backup initially and two incremental backups. The last incremental backup "failed" as the unit had an issue ejecting the tape and putting it back in the library slot (but all data was copied). I also did an upgrade of Veeam after the last incremental backup.

Today, I ran the same job and it wanted to do a full backup, so I had to mark all the tapes as free and allow Veeam to complete the full backup - I assume it was due to the failure state of the prior backup or the Veeam upgrade. Is there a list of conditions that Veeam will do a full backup on? I would like to be aware so I can ensure I have adequate space available on tapes before starting and budget enough time for the backup to complete (the library stays off when I am not actively backing up or restoring to cut down on power usage and noise since it is in a home environment).

[PTide]

Hi,

Since you haven't configured a schedule for the job, the job is expected to do exactly what you tell it - if you press "Active full" then it will start active full, the same for increments. That's how it is supposed to work normally. Considering that there were two additional factors ("fail" and "upgrade"), I'd recommend to contact support team directly so they can try to dig deeper to find the reason why the job attempted to perform full backup. Please post your support case ID when you get one.

Thanks!