Backups to retain?

[Chocka]

Hi

After years of using Norton Ghost 15, I'm new to Veaam. I upgraded to Windows 10 and needed another image software, because NG15 didn't work anymore. With NG I setup a monthly full backup and daily incremental. So I did the same with setup Veeam with a full back and daily incremental backups

I try to find out what is smart to do? Now the backup to retain is 14 days. Why I don't know, just choose an option.

But I don't see the new full backup after 14 days as I used to see with NG. In the meanwhile I find the FAQ which explained Veeam works different from what I used to with NG. Which only use 1 fullback which get changed after a while depend on the retains of backup, as I understand.

But if Veeam does this this way, I was asking myself what is a good to set for an consumer as me to optimal days of retain? May be, 14 days is unnecessary and is better to do longer or shorter?

Best regards

[Chocka]

(sorry, where is the edit button?)

And what me also surprised is that Veeam daily incremental backups are big, about 4~5 GB. OK I'm now on Windows 10, but NG was with Windows 7 nearly 1GB incremental a day, there is a big differnce?

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Chocka,

But I don't see the new full backup after 14 days as I used to see with NG. In the meanwhile I find the FAQ which explained Veeam works different from what I used to with NG. Which only use 1 fullback which get changed after a while depend on the retains of backup, as I understand.

Yep, Veeam backup is using forever incremental backup mode.

But if Veeam does this this way, I was asking myself what is a good to set for an consumer as me to optimal days of retain? May be, 14 days is unnecessary and is better to do longer or shorter?

It depends on what your requirements are. Two weeks of backup is usually enough for a workstation, however if you need to keep data for a longer period, you can definitely adjust the retention policy settings.

And what me also surprised is that Veeam daily incremental backups are big, about 4~5 GB. OK I'm now on Windows 10, but NG was with Windows 7 nearly 1GB incremental a day, there is a big differnce?

There is a number of potential reasons for that, for example, defragmentation or any other scheduled maintenance tasks. Please take a look at existing topics for further reading.

Thanks!

[Chocka]

Yep, Veeam backup is using forever incremental backup mode.

Clear to me

It depends on what your requirements are. Two weeks of backup is usually enough for a workstation, however if you need to keep data for a longer period, you can definitely adjust the retention policy settings.

So, 14 days is OK for me as well

There is a number of potential reasons for that, for example, defragmentation or any other scheduled maintenance tasks. Please take a look at existing topics for further reading.

Read a lot of it, and many others have the same issue as me, it all come to the architecture of Veeam as I understand.

[Vitaliy S.]

It's actually both, architecture (aka backup mode) and activity that is happening inside the guest OS.

Let us know if you have any other questions!