Retention period - Not what i expected

[keith Drayton]

Hello All

My first post to the forum, looking for a little advice, if more information is needed to tell me what im looking for i will supply it.

I have a backup job configured with the retention policy set at 15 restore points,
If i look under Disk for this job it is showing as many as 20 restore points for some VM and rising daily (vms added at different times so expect different numbers) i would expect the max to be 15.
The job is running as Reverse incremental, i don't remember but it might have originally been incremental, could this be the cause of extra restore points.

I then have a copy job that runs after the backup job 'Restore points to keep 14'
Disk is showing 9 restore points after completion of job, rises to 10 while job is running and latest backup beeing added, drops back to 9 after the merge completes at end of job.
Again i was expecting restore points to reach 14 on disk.

Can anyone shed some light on what im doing and why im not seeing what i expected?

Thanks

[Shestakov]

Hello Keith and welcome to the forums!

The job is running as Reverse incremental, i don't remember but it might have originally been incremental, could this be the cause of extra restore points.

Yes it could. In case of forward incremental backup method some older backups can not be deleted painlessly since newer restore points depend on them. In cases of Revere Incremental method and Forever Forward Incremental one, you will have exact number of restore points on the disk.

I then have a copy job that runs after the backup job 'Restore points to keep 14'
Disk is showing 9 restore points after completion of job, rises to 10 while job is running and latest backup beeing added, drops back to 9 after the merge completes at end of job.
Again i was expecting restore points to reach 14 on disk.

For backup copy job the number of restore points should be 14.
Do you have enough free space on your repository? Is the behavior followed by any warnings/errors?

Thanks!

[keith Drayton]

Hello Keith and welcome to the forums!
Yes it could. In case of forward incremental backup method some older backups can not be deleted painlessly since newer restore points depend on them. In cases of Revere Incremental method and Forever Forward Incremental one, you will have exact number of restore points on the disk.

In that case i might recreate the job from scratch, Might also use 'Forever Forward Incremental'

For backup copy job the number of restore points should be 14.
Do you have enough free space on your repository? Is the behavior followed by any warnings/errors?
Thanks!

Plenty of space on the disk, although i have just taken a closer look at the files, there is the vbk and 13 vib, giving me my 14,
Some of the vib are only around 30,000 kb instead of the full size of the others i 'think' this has happened when i have stopped the job for one thing or another so the file is counted against the 14 but there is no valid restore point in there,
Will have to wait until early next week see if the restore points go up when these are older than the '14'



Thank you

[Shestakov]

In that case i might recreate the job from scratch, Might also use 'Forever Forward Incremental'

You don`t need to recreate jobs. New restore points will be created according to the current backup method and older will be deleted by retention.

Some of the vib are only around 30,000 kb instead of the full size of the others i 'think' this has happened when i have stopped the job for one thing or another so the file is counted against the 14 but there is no valid restore point in there,
Will have to wait until early next week see if the restore points go up when these are older than the '14'

You can always try to initiate restore from the .vib to check if it`s viable.
For how long do you run the backup copy job? What`s the approximate size of other .vibs?
Thanks!

[keith Drayton]

The other vibs are between 30 and 50 GB, schedule window is 8 hrs, it normally copies within about an hour give or take a little.

[edit]
I can confirm the missing restore points from the 14 are the small vib files, looking back through the reports i think i can pin these to points when i was fiddling with schedules,
[edit]

Thanks

[Shestakov]

30 kb restore points mean that the backup copy job ran, but for some reason didn`t move restore points to the target.
I`d suggest to schedule backup copy job in accordance with the source backup job.
Thanks!

[keith Drayton]

30 kb restore points mean that the backup copy job ran, but for some reason didn`t move restore points to the target.
I`d suggest to schedule backup copy job in accordance with the source backup job.
Thanks!

The 30 kb files have been created when i was fiddling with the job configuration and it has been stopped / restarted by the looks of things,

The extra restore points on the origianl backup job 'should' also clear tomorrow, and is down to the point when the job was switched from incremental to reverse, there is a set of 7 incremental going back to a full, today is the last day these incrementals fall inside the the retention window, once th job runs tonight i am expecting the correct figures in the morning,

Thank you for all your replies, certainly helped me look in the right direction and get a better understanding of what the software is doing and im asking it to do,
Also add that i think it is a fantastic piece of software.

Thanks
Keith

[Shestakov]

Thank you for the kind words, Keith!
Glad you`ve got more product understanding. Once you have a question, don`t hesitate asking!