Standalone backup agent for Microsoft Windows servers and workstations (formerly Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE)
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daystrom
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OK to remove older backup files?

Post by daystrom »

A common backup pattern is to swap out the veeam agent for windows target external hdd, so that there is one fairly fresh copy offsite. The offsite and onsite drives are rotated periodically. When I bring in the drive that has been offline for weeks or months, veeam does not continue with the last set of backup files that it created, it starts a new set. From my experience it's ok to remove the older files that are not part of the new backup set, and haven't had issues with this. I wanted to confirm that this idea is ok and there shouldn't be unwanted side effects.
asdffdsa6131
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Re: OK to remove older backup files?

Post by asdffdsa6131 »

sure, i do this on a regular basis,

i set vagent to keep 730 backups, as the max is 730.
because i copy the backup files to the cloud, i do a forever forward incremental with weekly full, no compact, no defrag.

periodically, i prune/delete older .vib and .vbk files as needed.
daystrom
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Re: OK to remove older backup files?

Post by daystrom »

forever foward incremental...I don't see that in the vagent UI or in the docs. Thanks for the confirmation about deleting files!
asdffdsa6131
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Re: OK to remove older backup files?

Post by asdffdsa6131 » 1 person likes this post

you read more about backup types here, but that is for vbar.
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... l?ver=95u4

like i mentioned, after vagent runs, i copy the new files to cloud and cannot have rclone modifying old .vbk files and causing re-uploads.
i do that by dumb'ing down vagent as much as possible

1. keep backups for 730 days. so agent does not trigger retention policy, transform the backup chain or injecting data blocks into old .vbk
2. daily incremental
3. weekly full
4. disable 'de-fragment and compact full backup file'
5. one a month, i spend five minutes and manually prune some .vib files and sometimes i will prune a .vbk
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