Full Active Backups

[tjoyner]

Guys,

I have read the documentation and forum items about the active full backups vs reverse incremental backups. But I am STILL CONFUSED on how to do what I really want!
Please help me understand this concept

I have a server that is static. Items on this server RARELY change but I need to be able to restore it.

Scenario: - Weekly walk through using dates to help me understand how to do this.
What I want to do is to run a full Active backup on Friday (lets call this Jan 10)
Next, I want another Active full backup a week later on Jan 17. I want to store both Jan 10 and Jan 17 Active Full backups. (2 restore points)
Next, I want another Active full backup a week later on Jan 24. At this time, I want the script to delete the Jan 10 and create the Jan 24 active full (2 restore points)
I do not want any backups during the week between the 10, 17, and 24

My configuration plan:
Check Active Full Backup under Storage > advanced options > and select weekly > then select Fridays

CONFUSION
I have to make a choice: Reverse Incremental or Incremental
What choice do I make when I don't want an incremental at all?
**I seen an answer somewhere in the forum that said to set the incremental to the same day as the active full and ensure that the synthetic full is NOT selected. This concept doesn't make sense to me.

Will setting the incremental to run every Friday not cause an incremental to ALSO be created after the Active Full Backup runs?

Thank you in advance to anyone with the patience to help me out

[PetrM]

Hi Theresa,

Incremental backup will not be created on Friday if you schedule full backup to run on the same day. You don't need to script file deletion, our retention policy mechanism will delete Jan 10 right after 24 Jan is created if you opt for keeping two restore points. However, why you don't want to have incremental backups in between? If data change rarely, then nearly all incremental runs will transfer just a small amount of data and these incrementals will not consume space.

Thanks!

[tjoyner]

@PetrM: Thank you for clarifying that if a incremental is scheduled on the same day as a full, the incremental will not run.

To answer your question: Incrementals are no longer desired for this system after losing the entire current backup chain due to this type issue: microsoft-hyper-v-f25/04013540-virual-s ... ml#p359758. (I'm not using Hyper-V but I just had the same issue with file missing on storage).

In our case, something happened with the script where it assumed it created an incremental but it didn't or it didn't finish incremental correctly. Because neither the script nor I could not find the file it needed on the storage. Honestly! the file was not there and it was not manually deleted!

I LOST my ENTIRE current backup CHAIN due to corruption of an incremental backup!

To recover from this, a new script was created and the chain was started fresh with a new Active Full backup.

At which point, a management directive to perform only full weekly backups was issued.

[PetrM]

Hello Theresa,

It seems strange that you lost the whole incremental chain due to one .vib missing, I cannot envision such a case. If .vib is corrupted or does not exist, you still have full backup and previous increments that are valid for restore operations. However, you need to run a new full to continue backups, otherwise backup jobs will be failed with the corresponding message.

Also, please consider backup copy job as a method to follow 3-2-1 rule.

Thanks!