What happens when backup target full?

[yois]

I can't seem to find any documentation about this:

If I set my volume level backups to retain 120 days of backups, and the backup target storage fills up after 60 days, what happens? Will the backups fail or will it merge the oldest incremental into the full and keep going? Is there an option to keep as many backups fit on the storage allotted?

[Dima P.]

Hi yois,

Backup job will fail: merge is performed at the end of backup process and requires some free space as well.

[Vitaliy S.]

There is no option like that, as the number of restore points should be configured according to your backup policy (if any).

[yois]

Quite frankly, that is stupid, for two reasons:
A) I don't have a good way of estimating the space of my backups, so how am I supposed to know how to set this setting? Just make a random guess, and if I get it wrong I'm not protected?
B) A very simple setting should allow deleting of old backups when target reaches x% of capacity or gets below xGB of free space.

I will not be using this software, and will be steering anyone I know away from this software.

While we're at it, a simple feature enhancement should also allow backups to be merged, so that you can go back every day for 14 days, every week for 26 weeks, and every month for 2 years (think Macrium Reflect, Acronis, Ghost, and virtually every backup suite on the market).

Veeam, you're seriously behind the pack!

[Vitaliy S.]

While your feature request can definitely be applied in many cases (not saying that you're wrong here), I was just saying that if you have a hard requirement of storing backups for 2 weeks at least, then deleting oldest backup will make you non-compliant and restore will not be possible in case of a DR situation. Thanks for your feedback though, your vote for this feature is counted.

[chaycock]

I will not be using this software, and will be steering anyone I know away from this software.
Veeam, you're seriously behind the pack!

Not trying to start a war, but keep in mind this software is FREE and Veeam is providing a tremendous service by providing this software. Yes, there is room for improvement and a lot of features could be added, but by and far, I have not found anything that comes close to the quality and reliability of this product, especially when you consider the price.

I would like to commend Veeam for continuing to invest in this product and the willingness to solicit user feedback and incorporate requests into future versions.

Thank you for a very nice product and for continuing to offer it for free!

[yois]

Not trying to start a war, but keep in mind this software is FREE and Veeam is providing a tremendous service by providing this software. Yes, there is room for improvement and a lot of features could be added, but by and far, I have not found anything that comes close to the quality and reliability of this product, especially when you consider the price.

No war... I'm happy to get some honest feedback.

Have you taken a look at Macrium Reflect Free? VEB doesn't hold a candle to it. To the contrary, VEB is my first encounter with Veeam, and I now am not considering Veeam B&R for my HyperV deployments because I feel I can't trust them, and I'll use Unitrends or Altaro. (I'm not just saying that to get attention; I really mean it.) Putting out such software only harms themselves. Any condition that will stop a backup from running (that is avoidable) is objectively negligent on the part of the software developer.

[chaycock]

>Have you taken a look at Macrium Reflect Free?

I have heard of it but not really checked it out.
Since you seem to like Macrium, what made you consider switching to VEB? Why not just stay with Macrium? Is there something that came up that made you look for an alternative to Macrium?