Basic Question

[Racey]

I'm sure this has been covered and may even be in the user manual, but I haven't been able to locate this information.

Regarding the forever full incremental, how are deleted files handled? When the number of incrementals exceeds the number of retention points and the earliest incremental is injected into the full backup, if files were deleted between the time the original full backup was taken and the first incremental, will those files be deleted from the full backup at the beginning of the chain? In this scenario, it is conceivable that the size of the original full backup will fluctuate up and down. Is that the case or if data is injected into the full backup is it retained 'forever'?

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Racey,

Welcome to the forums!

Here is the manual where you can find the information on how forever forward incremental works: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... tml?ver=95

Especially this link should give you the information: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... tml?ver=95

To answer the question: We merge at the block level, so let's say a file is deleted between the full backup and the oldest incremental. In that case what will happen is that the information from the deleted block is in the incremental and since that gets merged, that deleted block will be out of the full. Which means that your full backup can go up and down in size indeed.

Hope it makes sense
Mike