Switching Backup Methods

[Jane]

Hello,

I'm a pretty new comer on the Veeam Backup and Replication solution.

On one part we have a backup job with a forever forward incremental backup and an copy backup with simple retention policy.
On one other part i have a full synthetic backup job (one per week) with a copy backup.

The synthetic one seems less attactive from my point of view when i compare because of the storage part (veeam will keep 2 synthetic waiting the second one to have enough restore point to delete the previous ones increasing the space taken).

My questions are :
If we switch from the synthetic method for forever forward increment backup job will that cause incident on my existing backup, and more importantly, on the subsequent copy job ?
How can i do an active full every X month staying in forever forward ?

I can't seem to find Kb answering those questions.

Regards,

[Shestakov]

Hello Jane and welcome to the community!

If we switch from the synthetic method for forever forward increment backup job will that cause incident on my existing backup, and more importantly, on the subsequent copy job ?

You can switch between the modes with no issues.

How can i do an active full every X month staying in forever forward ?

The only way to perform Active Fulls keeping forever forward method is to start it manually.
Do you also plan to run Surebackup jobs?

[Jane]

Thanks Shestakov for your answer.

For the switching part, if i switch from synthetic to to forever, will veeamhave to start a new backup chain (so i need to plan it) or will it use the last synthetic full available ?

For the active full, if i understand correctly the best way to stay in forever is to use a powershell script with a scheduled task to do the active full, correct me if i'm wrong.

In fact I'm studying how to verify the health of my backups, but instant recovery seems a bit heavy and we don't have surebackup though it looks great, so i'm digging about the validator.exe for now

[Shestakov]

For the switching part, if i switch from synthetic to to forever, will veeamhave to start a new backup chain (so i need to plan it) or will it use the last synthetic full available ?

The existing chain will be continued without new Active Full.

For the active full, if i understand correctly the best way to stay in forever is to use a powershell script with a scheduled task to do the active full, correct me if i'm wrong.
In fact I'm studying how to verify the health of my backups, but instant recovery seems a bit heavy and we don't have surebackup though it looks great, so i'm digging about the validator.exe for now

Correct, if you schedule active full, the job will not work as forever forward so you may want to start active fulls manually if you need them.
Thanks!

[Jane]

Ok thanks for that.

So if i plan an Active full - let's say every two month - it will be integrated automatically as a new chain begining for my job. My question is how veeams will handle the retention policy on that one ? Will it keep the old full plus all X increment until my active full has X increments (like in synthetic) and then delete the old full/ increments and begin the classic forever job ?

For the perfomance comparison between full synthetic and forever incremental i guess it's just about the same , but synthetic do more work once it do the full part and the forever it's a bit every day.
If someone have more detailled comparison/experiences between those two methods i would like to see that.

[Shestakov]

So if i plan an Active full - let's say every two month - it will be integrated automatically as a new chain begining for my job. My question is how veeams will handle the retention policy on that one ? Will it keep the old full plus all X increment until my active full has X increments (like in synthetic) and then delete the old full/ increments and begin the classic forever job ?

Despite what backup method is used you will not have less number of restore points than specified in the settings. However with active fulls you will have bigger number of increments on some days because VBR need to preserve the whole chain to provide the required number of restore points.

For the perfomance comparison between full synthetic and forever incremental i guess it's just about the same , but synthetic do more work once it do the full part and the forever it's a bit every day.

That is correct.

[Jane]

Ok it's good to have confirmation on those things, especially when you are a beginer with Veeam Backup&Replication.

So thanks a lot for your time !

[Shestakov]

You are welcome, Jane!

If someone have more detailled comparison/experiences between those two methods i would like to see that.

Please take a look at this topic for details