delete onse savepoint in a backup job

[warix]

Hello,

I have a question for you.
I have one backup job for a vm.
After 3 backup I want to delete the first save point for exemple is it possible to do that?

[Arnold]

Do you mean keep the VBK and then only have 2 restore points? This can be done by setting a retention policy on your job (when setting up job, click Advanced settings then Backup tab).

This will then run the job, and when files (VRB) meet the retention they are removed, leaving you with the latest backup of your server (VBK) and required number of roll back points (VRB)

[warix]

perhaps i don't understand your answer but i want to delete one restorepoint for exemple.

I have a backup with 3 restores point and i want to dele the firts and keep the second and third

Is it possible

[Vitaliy S.]

Also if you've already filled in your target storage with backup files and cannot run the job due to lack of free space, you may delete the oldest VRB files manually.

[Vitaliy S.]

Yes, that's possible. You should use retention policy settings to delete the oldest restore points. You cannot choose which restore points to delete just using GUI. All restore points removals are automatically performed at the end of each job run.

[Arnold]

The first one I would then presume would be the oldest?

So you would have one VBK and 3 VRB files?

30th June VBK
1st July VRB
2nd July VRB
3rd July VRB

If you were to set a retention of 2, then the oldest would be deleted, and you would only ever have the 2 newest VRBs present, and the updated VBK file which is your latest server backup.

If my understanding of how it works is correct

[tsightler]

The first one I would then presume would be the oldest?

So you would have one VBK and 3 VRB files?

30th June VBK
1st July VRB
2nd July VRB
3rd July VRB

If you were to set a retention of 2, then the oldest would be deleted, and you would only ever have the 2 newest VRBs present, and the updated VBK file which is your latest server backup.

If my understanding of how it works is correct

With Veeam 4.x (and all previous versions) the VBK file is always the "newest" and the VBR files are "rollbacks". So for your example it would be:

30th June VRB
1st July VRB
2nd July VRB
3rd July VBK

You could delete the "30th June VRB" and still be OK, but if you delete the "2nd July VRB" then all older VRB's are no longer usable (they are reverse incremental rollbacks, so once the chain is broken all older ones are no good).

Now, you can choose to run a new full backup occasionally, which could lead to something like:

27th June VBK
28th June VBR
29th June VBR
30th June VBR
1st July VBR
2nd July VBR
3rd July VBR
4th July VBK

Notice that there's a VBK on the 27th of June, and a VBK on the 4th of July. At this point, you could delete the 28th of June and still be able to get to 27th (since it's a full backup) and the 29th (since it's rollback chain is not broken).

Still, it's generally better to let Veeam handle the retention. We do some "magic" with hard links on our Linux boxes (which we use as Veeam backup targets) to hardlink our monthly VBK full backups into an "Archive" directory to keep a years of full backups. Veeam deletes from it's directory after the 31 day retention period, but since it's a hard link they still exist in the "Archive" directory. If we need to restore something from a few months back we can just import the "old" VBK file from the Archive directory. Works great.

[Arnold]

DOH!!! I knew I'd get something round the wrong way I knew what I was trying to say....just messed up with the example