need help to achieve proper backup configuration

[JeromeD]

hello all, i've recently started working with veeam and have been trying for the past couple of weeks to setup backups for our VM's in a way where we can have 6 month worth of data locally and at our off-site location. The issue i am having is i am unsure if this is possible with the current setup that we have below :

- 1 QNAP server with 2 volume for local backup; one has 7.15TB and the second volume has 5.41 TB
- 1 QNAP server for the off site backup ; 1 volume with 5. 41 TB

There are two jobs configured on the local qnap for each volume; volume 1 backup size is 2.15 TB and volume 2 is 1,98 TB
The off site QNAP backup size is 4.14 TB

from my current understanding, the only way i can see this achievable with this setup is with configuring reverse incremental backup on the local qnap but that will leave us with a lot of .vib files and i was told to try to avoid that, and then the off site qnap at the moment only has 5.41 TB for a backup that is 4.14 TB in total so i'm unsure how i would be able to keep 6 month worth of backup on that volume. Ultimately we will probably have to buy some disk to add space in those qnap but in the meantime i need to work with what i have.

so i am wondering is there a way i can achieve this configuration with this setup or will we undeniably need to add volume to be able to keep 6 month worth of backup ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thank you !

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums. I always suggest to start with the quick start guide

Just for clarification: with "QNAP Server" you mean a NAS storage, right? And you use the SMB protocol to write data to the storage?

I'm not sure why you would need reverse incremental. correct, it's not recommended for performance reasons. a backup copy job should do what you want. Just make sure that there is a gateway server off-site to avoid synthetic operations over WAN

For the 6 months, you can use 180 days retention policy or GFS. depends on what you need.

Best regards,
Hannes

[JeromeD]

thank you for your reply HannesK. to answer your question, yes it is a QNAP NAS storage and it is using SMB protocol to write data. in regards to the retention policy setting, the issue i have encountered previously is that if i use GFS retention and say that i want to keep it for 6 month, i don't have enough storage in any of the volumes to keep a GFS full backup + another full backup and the additional incremental files of the backup chain. Unless my comprehension of how this works is wrong, i don't think i have enough storage to be able to use GFS retention at the moment.

As for using 180 days retention, if i do that, if i understand correctly that is going to leave me with 1 .vbk and 179 .vib file ? I was trying to avoid dealing with that many .vib file, is this a good practice in general ?

[HannesK]

As for using 180 days retention, if i do that, if i understand correctly that is going to leave me with 1 .vbk and 179 .vib file ?

yep, with forward forever incremental. with reverse incremental it would be VRB files.

I was trying to avoid dealing with that many .vib file, is this a good practice in general ?

I know customers with 365 and 720 restore points... I mean, NAS boxes like yours are famous for bit rot. So using backup copy jobs and health checks are recommended. on the other hand, I assume that the performance of the box is too bad for health checks. Something that needs to be tested individually.