Question on synthetic fulls

[kaboomza]

Hi there,

Let's say I have a job where I don't run a synthetic full, and something happens with the original full backup, does this mean I lose the entire backup chain and I also cannot even do a file-level restore from one of the incremental backups?

[Natalia Lupacheva]

Hi Jaques,

Yes, basically if you have a full backup and the chain of incrementals and the full backup have been corrupted somehow, that would mean the whole chain is corrupted.
If you've configured backup copy, it might help.

Do you have some specific job configuration requirements which do not allow you to configure synthetic full?

Thanks!

[kaboomza]

Not really, its just that synthetic fulls take a large amount of storage, I'm trying to work smart with the storage I have available

[Natalia Lupacheva]

Well, if you have years of backups, it would make sense.
You might be interested in retention description - for example, animated examples for forward incremental backup mode.

Retention policy helps you to define the number of restore points which should be stored and thus how ‘far’ you are able to roll back.
If you configure synthetic full + 7 restore points, you will have full backup + 6 incrementals.
If you do not configure synthetic/active full and retention - the number of files can be really huge in two years, for example.

Thanks!