veeam retention of backups on agent

[kevinsharp]

I've updated several machines with the "free agent" from 1.5 to 2.0 and I have switched to a paid license. Since moving to a paid license the veeam agent has run of storage backup space and I've manually removed backup files to get space back.

I use an active full once a week with a daily incremental. The older backups that are past the retention date are not being expired properly (weeks past the retention date). I do have machines with the agent on them that do expire the backup properly.

Any suggestions?

thanks

[PTide]

Hi,

Are you sure that you're on version 2.0? The latest version is 2.1

Would you share your retention settings please?

Thanks

[Dima P.]

I use an active full once a week with a daily incremental. The older backups that are past the retention date are not being expired properly (weeks past the retention date). I do have machines with the agent on them that do expire the backup properly.

Just to clarfiy, when enabled Active full backup switches backup mode to forever incremental (instead of forever forward incremental). In such case the oldest or inactive backup chain (the part from full to the next full) is being removed only after the latest restore point is expired. As a result you may see more restore points on the repository than set in retention. Please check this article for more details.

[kevinsharp]

The agent is on version 2.0. 2.1 upgrade is in the works.

I have been using active fulls for several months and with a backup retention of 30 days, it should be removing the oldest restore points.

[Dima P.]

How frequently you take Active Full backups? Thanks.

[kevinsharp]

I take an active backup once a week.

[Dima P.]

So we have 90 days of retention with weekly active full backup. You backup chains should look like this:

F(1)+I(1)+I(2)+I(3)+I(4)+I(5)+I(6)
...
F(12)+I(1)+I(2)+I(3)+I(4)+I(5)+I(6)

First backup chain will be deleted by retention only after last incremental restore point is expired, so you see the creation of a new backup chain before the oldest backup chain is erased.

F(13)+I(1)+I(2)+I(3)+I(4)+I(5)+I(6)

[kevinsharp]

That is correct. After another downtime restart, the servers appear to be expiring properly. Not sure why they were not expiring properly before. It had not expired any backup data since updating from free to licensed version.

[Dima P.]

Kevin,

Restore point removal is a part of backup job. You can see these restore points on disk unless the backup job kicks in.

[Lunddahl]

I'm using 2 rotated drives, does removing old retention points not work then ?

Settings: Keep backups for 14 days, active full every Saturday, the two drives drives are rotated on Mondays.

Code: Select all

29-03-2018  00:31     1.018.556.416 Backup Job SERVER2018-03-29T003020.vib
30-03-2018  00:31       495.566.848 Backup Job SERVER2018-03-30T003021.vib
31-03-2018  00:31       536.780.800 Backup Job SERVER2018-03-31T003021.vib
01-04-2018  00:31       761.765.888 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-01T003019.vib
02-04-2018  00:31       554.553.344 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-02T003019.vib
03-04-2018  00:31       498.003.968 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-03T003019.vib
04-04-2018  00:31       989.966.336 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-04T003019.vib
05-04-2018  00:32     1.962.012.672 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-05T003019.vib
06-04-2018  00:31     1.266.561.024 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-06T003019.vib
07-04-2018  00:31       878.247.936 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-07T003022.vib
08-04-2018  00:31       493.301.760 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-08T003019.vib
09-04-2018  00:31       511.672.320 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-09T003019.vib
10-04-2018  00:31       758.419.456 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-10T003022.vib
11-04-2018  00:32     1.972.654.080 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-11T003019.vib
11-04-2018  00:33   681.623.678.976 Backup Job SERVER2018-03-28T003021.vbk
12-04-2018  00:32     2.963.443.712 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-12T003019.vib
13-04-2018  00:31     1.231.171.584 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-13T003021.vib
14-04-2018  02:33   682.590.470.144 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-14T003019.vbk
15-04-2018  00:31       551.632.896 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-15T003020.vib
16-04-2018  00:31       520.077.312 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-16T003019.vib
17-04-2018  00:31     1.725.747.200 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-17T003021.vib
18-04-2018  00:32     6.108.794.880 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-18T003019.vib
19-04-2018  00:31     2.573.312.000 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-19T003019.vib
20-04-2018  00:31     1.372.053.504 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-20T003022.vib
21-04-2018  02:48   685.979.156.480 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-21T003020.vbk
22-04-2018  00:31       520.404.992 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-22T003020.vib
23-04-2018  00:31       560.545.792 Backup Job SERVER2018-04-23T003022.vib
05-05-2018  03:16   688.173.043.712 Backup Job SERVER2018-05-05T003022.vbk
06-05-2018  00:31       549.662.720 Backup Job SERVER2018-05-06T003020.vib
07-05-2018  00:31       535.773.184 Backup Job SERVER2018-05-07T003019.vib
08-05-2018  00:31       758.714.368 Backup Job SERVER2018-05-08T003020.vib
08-05-2018  00:31           725.026 Backup Job SERVER.vbm

To me i looks like there is way to many files ?