Backup Types? Reverse or forever forward incrementals?

[SBarrett847]

Is there any plans (or have I missed the relevant section in the manual?) to provide for Reverse or forever forward incrementals with the Agents? I'm finding the Balancing act between the Forward incremantals, restore point retention, and Full backup period, a bit awkward to manage when tight on space in the repositories.

[Dima P.]

Hi Stephen,

We do not plan to add reversed incremental backup mode. Forever forward incremental backup mode is suppoted (as well as incremental backup with periodic fulls). Thank you.

[SBarrett847]

Hmm ok, I may have misunderstood the agents operation then - I'm guessing then that enabling periodic Fulls, disables the Forever Forward Transforms? Can we get a combination of both, Forever Forward with periodic fulls?

EDIT:- The reason I like Periodic fulls is that it mitigates against bit-rot. And the reason i'd like that combined with Forever forward is that it would be space efficient, compared to Forward incrementals and Active fulls..

[Dima P.]

I'm guessing then that enabling periodic Fulls, disables the Forever Forward Transforms?

Correct. You either use forever forward incremental backup mode or enable periodic full backup (active full or synthetic full) to disable transform.

[bkjackson]

So forever forward incrementals vs weekly fulls which uses less space? When these forever forwards compact the first full, is 30 days of the compacted full plus all the incrementalls smaller than the 30 days of four ish fulls plus it's incrementals? Assuming no dedupe. What about with a SAN thinking 3 - 1 dedupe which would be smaller?