How does it work?

[pstoric83]

I'm speaking about the free version. I can see during the initial backup config that it creates one full image and then the rest are incremental with 14 day retention period. Doesn't the full image need to be re-created periodically as on day 15 the first incremental will drop off?

I can see under advanced you can choose to set it to create full backups monthly but curious to see how it works with the default settings.

[Dima P.]

Hi Paul,

Veeam Agent for Windows is running in forever incremental backup mode by default. It means VAW backup chain has one full backup, the rest are incremental. When it's time to remove the obsolete restore point, Veeam Agent for Windows does not delete backup files from disk, instead, it transforms the backup chain so that the backup chain always contains a full backup file on which subsequent incremental backup files are dependent.

[Paco_glt]

I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure Synthetic full backup is not available with the FREE version !
Edit : https://www.veeam.com/fr/veeam_agent_wi ... son_ds.pdf

[Mike Resseler]

@Paco,

You are not wrong meaning that in the FREE version you cannot decide to create a synthetic full at a certain point in time. What Dima says is that the way forever incremental works, the oldest backup is the full, and when the retention of that one is over, the next backup (incremental) will be merged into that oldest one, giving you again a full backup. But as said, you can't choose that moment, it happens when the retention of the oldest backup file is over

Makes sense?

Thanks
Mike

[pstoric83]

Thanks guys, that explains it!

[Paco_glt]

Oh ok Mike that changes a lot of things for me ! I thought that in the Free version, every backup was a full !

Thank you for the clarification !