Rotating External Drives (Backing up multiple computers)

[tylor]

Hello,

I'm looking to use Veeam Agent for Windows (Free) to backup multiple computers to multiple destination drives (rotating a usb ext hdd) as incremental backups.
Let me know if this is possible. I've tested it and it seems to work. I'll explain how.

Using this tool "USBDLM V5.2.8 - USB Drive Letter Manager for Windows" I'm telling the ext. backup drive, whatever it is to be assigned the drive letter Z, this is also shared on the network to everyone.
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html#config
So, no matter which drive I plug in, as long as it is one at a time it's always Z and shared as Z.

Therefor the remote computer has a backup destination of the computer with the rotating drives as Z. If it back it up and there is no original (master file), it creates it, and any change after it makes the new incremental backup.
Rotating drives seems to work flawlessly as the program above always makes sure it is the Z drive. There are no local drives to register as it's backing up thru the network share.

I'm posting this to see what your opinion is of using this method to backup multiple computers (about 5 to 10 in concept), to a drive that is rotated into a safe location periodically.

So far I understand that no matter what the current files that exist on the drive it will look at what is there (if nothing it will create a new master) and if there is something there it will amend it making it current?

Am I correct in this statement? It seems to work in my testing. I'm curious to hear your comments or concerns.

A question I have in doing this process will it always update the incremental backup to be the most current, and if there are over 14 backups on the single drive, will it consolidate it so there isn't more than 1 full backup and 14 incremental backups as per the default backup setting?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts on the matter.

[Dima P.]

Hi Tylor,

Backup job should look for it’s own backup files and continue the backup chain if files are not removed (or moved). Otherwise you will get a new full backup. Just a thought – you could configure backup to a file share with this hard drive attached. This would be easier in terms of managements (it won’t require reattaching hard drive every time).

question I have in doing this process will it always update the incremental backup to be the most current, and if there are over 14 backups on the single drive, will it consolidate it so there isn't more than 1 full backup and 14 incremental backups as per the default backup setting?

True if active full option is not selected (Backup destination step > Advanced)