Feature Request: After backup, eject USB hard drive

[Morgenstern72]

To protect against ransomware and cryptolocker, it would be great if the (free) veeam agent provides an option to eject a USB disk used as backup medium. Only a restart or physical interaction can connect an ejected drive. So for everyone backing up right after their PC starts (or like me at 6m OR immediately when missed the schedule = at start of PC) this would help to be much more secure.
I also have a storage which is powered down is used to run an additional Robocopy-Sync about every 2 weeks.

But for people that mostly turn off their PC every day or just reconnect their drive when they come home this would be a simple, but very helpful feature

[Shestakov]

Hello,
Have you checked Eject removable storage once backup is completed option? That does exactly what you are requesting.
Thanks

[Morgenstern72]

I checked exact this section before posting, but was unable to spot the greyed out option - my fault!

Thanks a lot for pointing me to it :

[Shestakov]

No problem. Once you have a question, don't hesitate asking!

[Morgenstern72]

I was too fast: I did overlook it, since it's not in the "Periodically" section. I backup every day at 6am or when the computer is available later.
Now I selected ALSO "When backup target is connected" > Eject removable storage....
AND "Backup no more than 1 time per day".

Is that correct?

Thoughts: when I select the daily backup and backup cant be done I get a warning. I will not get a warning if I select "When backup target is connected" and backup can't be done.
So I fear I trade now security regarding Cryptpolocker against Warnings from veeam if the backup HD has a problem. I changed to veeam because MS backup did not warn me, when it could not write to the backup HD anymore and I was without backups for 3 months....

[Shestakov]

Your reasoning is correct, but the goal is not clear now.
If you want Veeam Agent to eject the USB drive automatically after the backup is done, you need to insert it manually. The point of protection against ransomware and cryptolocker is that once backup repository is ejected it cannot be inserted back by software.

[Morgenstern72]

If you want Veeam Agent to eject the USB drive automatically after the backup is done, you need to insert it manually. The point of protection against ransomware and cryptolocker is that once backup repository is ejected it cannot be inserted back by software.

-> which is achieved by restarting my PC every day. It's a desktop and it should backup as soon as its started, then eject the drive and at some point i shut down. Next day USB drive is attached again automatically due to a new start.

[Shestakov]

So you need to schedule daily restart and make Agent to backup right after restart and then eject the medium.

[Morgenstern72]

"So you need to schedule daily restart and make Agent to backup right after restart and then eject the medium." -> But the moment I check the "eject" it will not warn me if it cant make a backup. So that's not an option.

So my Feature Request would be, that an "Eject after backup" is also included in the scheduled backup, not only the "When backup medium is inserted" option.

[Shestakov]

Got it. Thanks for the feedback, it's taken into account!

[Morgenstern72]

Thank you for your time

[pstextractor]

This seems perfect, however i do not see these options as specified in the KB. I dont have the "at the following events" section at all. Is this a new feature in version 12? I checked both 9.5 and version 11 and neither has this section.

Does this setting not work when you are backing up virtual machines? the screen shot is from "agent" backup which we dont use. Any other reason i dont see this option?

EDIT: looks like even in that KB, it makes a distinction between "workstation and free" and "server". Obviously i am using server based backup... Why the heck does this feature not exist just because its server based? my window looks like this:



VS



why????? how can a free product have more features than paid for product! madness!

[Nils]

@pstextractor Is that a VAW 6.1? Perhaps you've missed an update.

[Egor Yakovlev]

The difference in job wizard options is defined by nature of the protected workloads.
- Workstations are more personal devices, with human being accessing them interactively, having a physical access to the device, being mobile, commonly offline \ on the road. That is why options like connection to the storage and operations with lock\logoff events are present here.
- Servers are more static, with little to none physical access to the hardware, sitting in the server room, where you can always expect target storage as well as connection to backup server to be available at all times.

[pstextractor]

Servers are more static, with little to none physical access to the hardware

K i mean, there is a very valid workflow which is having a USB passthrough to a server VM and then having a usb dock attached. For exactly this type of air gapped backup for ransomware purposes. Sure i have my disk arrays, san and all that, but its all online all the time. This would be something that would get powered up friday morning, do its thing, then power down and eject after use and get turned off manually at the end of day, to be stored in a safety deposit box or another site, offline.

it is sad that veeam with all its resources has to pigeonhole workloads into neuroconformative boxes. SET MY WORKLOADS FREE!


I guess i will just have to do it with post job scripts but comeon veeam.... come on.... what is the harm in having more features? if people don't need it, then they don't have to use it.

[Egor Yakovlev]

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of having that option in mentioned above case, but we are always balancing in between "we can!" and "should we?" - not to overwhelm UI with dozens of options for all sorts of cases our users might meet. That is why Veeam R&D Forums is one of the best places to raise the point and make product teams aware of the customer needs. "Should we" just added more weight because of this thread.