Change Forever Forward to Forward

[perjonsson1960]

Folks,

I have a Forever Forward Incremental backup chain with a 60 day retention, i.e. a full backup at the back, followed by 59-ish incrementals. What happens if I change it to a Forward Incremental with a synthetic full created once a week, and want to keep 6 monthly backups, and keep the 60 day retention? I guess that the 59-ish incrementals will be merged into the full backup at the back, one by one, as new incrementals and synthetic fulls are created at the front of the chain? And eventually the full backup at the back will be made into a monthly full backup, and kept for 6 months?

PJ

[Mildur]

Hi PJ

The old chain will not be transformed into the new format. 1 Fullbackup and 59 incrementals will be stored on the repository until the new chains after the change have enough restore points to comply with the short-term retention policy (60 days back).
And GFS Tags will be set only for new Full-Backups, not existing restore points.

Thanks
Fabian

[perjonsson1960]

Thanks for your reply!

Aha, I see. And when the new chain has reached 60 days, then the old chain will be deleted in one big sweep?

PJ

[Mildur]

With weekly fulls your new chains will have 1 full and 6 days of incremental files.
This should take 9 weeks until you have enough restore points for VBR to remove the old 60 RP chain.
After that, the oldest chain will be removed on a weekly basis.

Best regards
Fabian

[perjonsson1960]

Thank you! I see things more clearly now!

One more thing: When the first synthetic full is created in the new chain, will that be synthesized from the old chain, or will B&R consider this to be a new backup, and do an "Active Full" and read all the data from the actual machine being backed up?

PJ

[veremin]

The existing restore points will be used to synthesize a full backup.

[perjonsson1960]

Thank you for your help!

PJ

[veremin]

You are welcome. Let us know, should other help be needed.