Backup storage unit is full

[Tim R]

The HDD where the backups are stored has only 944 MB of storage left. There are 8 VIB files and one VBK and one VBM file. The option for the duration of keeping a backup was set to 7 days (excluding the days when no backup was made). After setting it to 6 and rebooting, nothing changed. How can I get some storage back and prevent something like this in the future?

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums.

After setting it to 6 and rebooting, nothing changed.

that's expected. Retention is applied only after backup run. That means you need another successful backup, before the backup files will be deleted by the software. If you have no space, then there are two options:
1) provide more space (probably impossible)
2) delete files manually (not great, but works)

prevent something like this in the future?

The software throws warnings on low disk space. Once that happens, reduce retention or data or provide more space would be the solution.

Best regards,
Hannes

[Tim R]

Thanks for your reply. Because there is no option to get extra space on that storage unit, I think I have to manually delete an incremental backup file. From the user guide, I understood that if I don’t delete the oldest incremental backup, the chain gets interrupted and the following ones are useless, correct? So I need to delete the oldest incremental backup to free up space, right?
Thanks
Tim

[HannesK]

hmm, I cannot follow how you understood this. The user guide second sentence says

Always delete the whole backup chain from the target location. If you delete a full backup file or individual incremental backup file from the backup chain, the chain will be broken, and Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows will fail to perform the scheduled backup next time.

To be fair... that sentence is not 100% correct. I just tested it (with V6). If one deletes a file, then it creates a new full backup. It does not fail.

[Tim R]

So in my understanding, I have to delete the oldest incremental backup. When I delete an incremental backup before which another incremental backup was made, the earlier ones are useless because they are based on the deleted one. If this isn't correct, please tell me what to do, as I'm new to the program and don't want to cause any problems.

[HannesK]

quoting again the first sentence

Always delete the whole backup chain from the target location

[Tim R]

And what should I chose as target location? The oldest backup?

[HiHoItsOffToWorkWeGo]

I imagine that deleting all the incremental backups might give you enough space to perform one more (but larger) incremental backup.
Please be sure to shorten your retention to 3 days (or 2?) prior to running this backup.
Hopefully this will allow a second incremental backup the following day.
On the third day, after the third incremental backup has successfully completed, Veeam will automatically merge the oldest incremental into the full backup file and then delete that merged incremental.

The alternative instructions (provided above) are to delete all the backups from the drive and just start again. If you take this option, make sure to shorten your retention. Try 2 or 3 recovery points.

[ejenner]

You've got the option of moving a backup. Did you put all your individual machines into a single backup job? I ALWAYS do a separate job for each resource I'm protecting as the advantages of the granularity outweigh the disadvantages of some lost deduplication / compression / superficial convenience.

At times like this if your jobs were individually configured for each computer you could move a few small jobs off your primary backup storage onto a portable hard disk or to some other system and then rectify the causes of your space issues.

Seems to me however... since the full backup files (the .VBKs) will be taking up the majority of your space knocking off one incremental isn't going to fix the space issue.

If you are using Windows Server 2019 or newer you can safely implement the REFS disk format which is great for Veeam backups and can provide a lot of extra space with the block cloning but sounds like you might have some kind of disk system?

[rciscon]

When I've run into the problem in the past, I've been able to resolve it in the following manner:

1) Edit the job and lower the number of Restore Points by the least possible number that will free up enough space to allow the backup jobs to continue.
2) Run the job, which will fail because of insufficient disk space, but will delete the number of Restore Points you lowered in step 1.
3) Run the job again, and if enough disk space was freed up, the backup will run successfully.

At this point you'll need to find a way to get more storage available for that backup. Move it to another location with more storage, add additional storage to the existing location, etc.

I'd avoid doing any manual deletions, it always presents the chance, very low-but not zero, of causing problems in the Veeam database. My preference is to always let Veeam do the deletions if possible.

Best of Luck!