Retention and active full

[techdesign]

I've searched and searched and not found an answer I feel is complete. I have a job that I was hoping to have work in the following manner:

14 restore points
Active full on the last friday of the month

My hope had been that I would have my VBK to start my chain, and then 13 VIB's to give me my 14 restore points. I had hoped those would just roll forward like a forever forward until I got to the last friday, at which point a new chain would be started by an active full VBK. I understood at that point my previous chain would remain until I got 13 more VIB files.

But what I am seeing is that I got my initial VBK, and now I have 28 VIBs! I am assuming this is because turning on active full essentially made this a forward incremental job, so I will end up with an entire month of VIBs, and my "old" chain will only be deleted when I have 14 restore points on my new chain?

If that is the case, is there a way to accomplish what I want to accomplish with somewhat limited space? I have 6TB total storage for backups currently. My VBK takes 2TB. Currently with 28 VIBs I don't have enough space for a 2nd VBK to be created. It seems like the only way to come close to what I'm trying to accomplish is to keep 7 restore points, then have an Active Full run every Friday? That would give me a range of 7 to 14 restore points as each full gets created wouldn't it?

[HannesK]

Hello,
no, an active full does no merges. That's because active full is mostly used on slow backup storage systems which don't have enough performance for merge operations.

I recommend using the restore point simulator (I pre-configured your current settings) to test your setup.

Best regards,
Hannes

[techdesign]

Thanks!