VEEAM BackUp to NAS

[Derek J]

I have four virtual machines being backed up to a Buffalo Terastation NAS. On the NAS share I see .vbk files listed and a .vbm file. However I do not see .vib files, but I do see .vib files in the trashbox of the NAS. Are the .vib files inside the .vbk files and I am only seeing the .vib files after they are moved to the trash? I want to cleanup the NAS trashfolder, but wonder if I should.

[foggy]

Hi Derek, what are the retention settings for the job and what backup method it is using (forward incremental or forever forward)? What do you see in Veeam B&R console if you open this backup properties?

[Derek J]

Incremental (recommended). Create synthetic full backups periodically is checked. Active full backups periodically on Fridays. set to 14 days retention restore points.
I do not see forward or forever forward.

[Egor Yakovlev]

Hi Derek, what is your backup schedule set to?
With periodic Full Backup scheduled, your backup chain is in "classic" Forward incremental mode. First run will yeild Full backup (vbk) + Metadata (vbm). Subsequent runs will create incremental backup files (vib), until Friday, where Active Full (vbk) is scheduled. Since your Retention is set to 14 days, I would expect [vbk+6vib, vbk+6vib, vbk+6vib] chain on Nas before retention cleanup happens. That's the moment(21 restore points on Nas) when old vbk+vib files could have been deleted by Veeam.
Anyhow backup chain on the NAS must reflect what Veeam expects to be there, aka Home - > Backups - > Disk - > Backup Job name - > Properties.
/Thanks

[Derek J]

I only see .vbk files in the backup folder on the NAS. But if I look at the NAS trashbox I can see both .vbk and .vib
Are the .vib files in the .vbk

[foggy]

No, VIBs are separate restore points and should be there along with VBK and VBM files. Any chance they are deleted by some external process? Does the job still run successfully? It should fail if it finds out that some of the required files in the chain are absent. I'd contact technical support to take a closer look at this behavior.

[Derek J]

The job appears to run fine in VEEAM and I get the .VBK files each day the job runs. I only noticed the .VIB files were missing because the Buffalo NAS has a folder called "TrashBox" that is a Recycling Bin for it. I noticed it was filling up with files from the VEEAM backup job. On the same Date stamp there is a .VBK created and about an hour later a .VIB is inside this Trashbox folder. There is also a .VBK file in the proper folder share and it has a slightly different name than the .VBK found in the trashbox. I thought perhaps that the .VBK folders in the proper location had past the retention period and moved the contents of the backup to the trashbox and perhaps it was splitting the .VBK & .VIB files up, but since the .VBK full does not have .VIB files inside it this must not be the case. I did turn off the Buffalo NAS from backing up the recycle bin on the share and it no longer is putting .VBK or .VIB files there, but this now makes me wonder why I cannot see these .VIB in the proper folder.

[foggy]

The job appears to run fine in VEEAM and I get the .VBK files each day the job runs.

This makes me think you've configured synthetic full to be performed during every job run. You haven't shared the job schedule as Egor requested above, but if this is the case, then this could explain the deleted VIBs - at the day synthetic full is scheduled at the job first creates an increment and then performs synthetic full based on the previous full backup and increments created afterwards. The unneeded increment is then deleted. Please check the synthetic full schedule and the job general schedule.

[Derek J]

Thanks Egor and Foggy the backups are set to: Incremental- Create Synthetic Full Backups periodically is checked. Runs Mon-Thurs & Sat. On Friday an Active Full Backup is also run. I have tested restores with the existing backup files and they complete successfully, so what you were thinking appears to be what is going on. Was not aware of the temp incremental files being created when running a Synthetic backup. Thanks again makes me more confident of my backups.

[foggy]

Glad we've nailed it. One question though - what are the reasons for every day full? Looks like an overkill.

[Derek J]

Just not totally familiar with VEEAM yet and wondered if it was necessary. Did not know that the synthetic full would get me all that I needed. I will change the Active full on Fri to a Synthetic now. Thanks again!

[foggy]

Typically a weekly full (either synthetic or active) is fine (or even not necessary at all) unless you have some specific requirements to have each restore point as a full one.