How to delete vbk and vib files automatically?

[stevedarl1]

Hi all,

We have limited volume space that we backup to, performing an incremental synthetic full backup on a friday ( backing up to tape using BUE saturday/sunday) and then incrementals during the week (backing up the incremental each night to tape). We do not have space to run another full backup the following friday, so manually i have been deleting the backups from disc as late as possible before the backup.

Anyone know a way to automate this process? Ive been thinking of a windows batch file using task schedular but i dont know how Veeam will react to losing those files without removing from disk within Veeam.

Or maybe there is an easier way?

Thanks,
Steve

[foggy]

Hello, Steve. Since you have synthetic fulls created successfully, then you have space for at least two fulls at a time. That said, you could enable transformation of previous restore points to rollbacks to save space for the next full backup or set retention to 1 restore point - in this case the entire previous chain will be deleted after performing synthetic full on Friday.

[stevedarl1]

Hi foggy, we only want to keep 1 full and 5 incrementals. Is there any way to run a script within Veeam to delete the vbk and vib files frm disk at a set date and time?

[veremin]

Is there any way to run a script within Veeam to delete the vbk and vib files frm disk at a set date and time?

You have to specify retention policy accordingly.

As mentioned above – set retention policy to 1 and specify weekly synthetic full with “transformation” option being enabled. Thus, once the synthetic full takes place, previous restore points will be deleted.

Thanks.

[stevedarl1]

hi v.Eremin, thanks for the response. Its not just the restore points we want deleting though, its everything vbk and vib files. If i set the retenion policy to 1 will this achieve what i need?

Just to reiterate, we need the disk to be empty "before" the full backup takes place.

Thanks,
Steve

[foggy]

Just to reiterate, we need the disk to be empty "before" the full backup takes place.

That's not obviously possible with incremental backup. If the repository is empty, in case of incremental run, the job will fail due to missing VBK file, unless you have the ForceCreateMissingVBK key set to 1. This is not so in case of active full though, so another option is that you could perform active fulls during each job run to achieve what you want. Setting retention to 1 will always keep at least one restore point on disk (before starting the next job run).

[veremin]

Just to reiterate, we need the disk to be empty "before" the full backup takes place.

Of course, it’s possible to run some script via Windows Scheduler at the end of each week that will clean a given folder. Though, I strongly advise you not to. Since, in this case, you might face situation of you having no backup on the local disks, at all. For instance, your Saturday full backup fails for some of reason, and up to that moment thecorresponding folder has been already cleaned up. So, what are you going to do next? Find and load required tape medias, restore full backup chain, import backup data to VB&R console, etc. – quite a time consuming process, from my perspective.

In contrast, if you set retention policy to 1 and specify weekly synthetic full with “transformation” option being enabled, it will be guaranteed that not until the full backup is created, will the previous restore points (.vbk, .vibs) be deleted.

Thanks.

[dandy]

Hi,

I know it maybe a bit late.....but try and explore FORFILES utility. This should solve your problem.

Regards
dandy