3.0 repository questions

[Robvil]

Hi,

The new snapshot based retension policy for repositories is good news. Just to clarify - if i create a repository using snapshot based with a retension of 2 years, only 2 years back of data is in the repository, but the hole Exchange mailbox is protected and i will be able to restore any backup data back up until 2 years back?

I guess i can´t convert a existing items based repository to snapshot based?

/Robert

[Polina]

Hi Robert,

Yes, that's correct. And once applied, the type of retention cannot be changed in the future.
Here's a good explanation on how different retention types work in v3.
And some details in the documentation as well.

Hope it helps.

[Helferlein]

Is there actually a difference in backup time?
Which method is faster?
Item level or snapshot based?

[Mike Resseler]

Peter,

Theoretically, both methods are equal in time. The only difference should be in the first full. With item level you will take a subset of the data (which is younger than the retention range) and with snapshot you will backup everything.

[Helferlein]

Thanks Mike.

Just another Repository question:

Is it recommended to use NTFS or ReFS? What Blocksize in what case?
Does Snapshot feature use ReFS on Server 2016 FastClone as well in VBO Snapshot Backups like in VBR?

[Mike Resseler]

Fastclone does not work since we are storing the data in a JetDB and there are no real transforms like in VBR.
Choosing NTFS or ReFS does not matter in this case. Both options are good. I would advise to go for 4k in the case of ReFS because it is not constant sequential data compared to storing VBK files in VBR

[HDClown]

The reference links about snapshot retention indicate that retention is based on snapshot date and item date (within the snapshot). Does that mean if you set 1 year retention on a snapshot repository, you will never have email items older than 1 year old in the repository, or am I mis-interpreting this?

[Mike Resseler]

Snapshot based retention means that you will have a point in time backup where you will see the mailbox (as an example) exactly as it is at that moment. Item-level means you will see only items where the changed or modified (or created) date are equal or younger than 1 year. Niels explained it in this blog: https://www.veeam.com/blog/new-features ... up-v3.html

If there are still questions, let me know
Mike

[HDClown]

Mike,

From Niel's blog about snapshot retention:

Retention processing: During clean-up, we will remove all items belonging to snapshots of mailbox/site/folder that are older than the retention period.

This statement is a bit confusing. Is this supposed to be saying that if your retention is 60 days than any snapshot older than 60 days is removed? Or is it saying that if you have an item within a snapshot that is older than 60 days, that individual item is removed? The former is what I would expect with "snapshot retention", as the later is effectively what item retention does.

[Mike Resseler]

This part comes from the snapshot based retention

In that retention, we have point-in-time "images". So every one of these "images" will be removed. Which basically means, that you won't be able to go back to the state of the mailbox/ OneDrive/ whatever anymore. But items that are still in the snapshots who are younger then the retention time (even if the individual age of them is older than 60) won't be removed. As an (hopefully easy) example: If you have contacts in your Outlook who are 3 years old. A snapshot based retention of 60 days. Those contacts are still visible today so as a result, you won't be able to revert to the look of your outlook of 60 days ago, but if you restore from the backup of yesterday, those 3 year old items will still be there.

Hope it makes it clear.

[HDClown]

Mike,

Thank you for the clarification. I figured the snapshot method didn't consider item age, but rather the age of the snapshot itself.

In your example of a 3 year old Outlook contact with 60 day retention. I would be able to revert the Outlook to it's exact look anywhere from 1 to 59 days ago, correct? In all of those instances. the 3 year old contact will exit in each of those snapshot points.

[Mike Resseler]

Correct

[bertdhont]

What about needed disk space? Do we need a significant amount of extra disks space for Snapshot based retention in comparison with item based retention?

[Polina]

Hi Bert,

Snapshot-based requires more space, as on the first full backup runs jobs will grab all the available data of the selected type and add changes going further. You can estimate the first full backup size with the Measure-VBOOrganizationFullBackupSize cmdlet.