Veeam BU Job or Nimble Snapshot/Replication

[Bob_MoodyTX]

This is rather a convoluted question so let me see if I can explain it.

We have a Windows 2012 server that acts as a file server for our roaming profiles and user documents.
The server itself is a VM and was residing in Nimble Volume VCStor-VMFS6 (which is a cluster of 2 datastores VCStor01 and VCStor02)
DocStor is a Nimble volume and is presented to VMware as DocStor and is mounted as an iSCSI mount to the server.

VCStor was getting a Nimble snapshot
DocStor (volume)was getting a Nimble snapshot
Docstor (volume) has a Veeam backup job assigned as forever incremental with 14 recovery points.

<clear as mud yet???>

While looking at Veeam storage snapshots I could see the 2012 server. However, if I told it to restore I discovered that if told it to Restore Guest Files that I was only seeing the "C" drive. The iSCSI drive was not presented.
After a little consideration, I performed Storage vMotion on the VM and relocated it to the DocStor datastore/volume.
I told Nimble to take a snapshot and told Veeam to rescan.
I performed a Restore Guest Files and the DocStor data was now available ...
This is exactly what I was hoping for .... BUT .. it raised a question ..
I am currently critically low on Nimble storage (I am at 92% and without funding for upgrades .. )

Given what I have described what would be the general consensus on reducing the backup footprint and storage needs?
Is a Veeam Forever incremental backup smaller or larger than a Nimble snapshot?

I thought of using all Veeam backup --OR
all Nimble Snapshots/Replication -- OR
a hybrid of the two ..
Mon-Fri use the Veeam backup, then on Sat take a single snapshot and replicate retaining 5 replicas.

I hope I explained well enough to get some feedback ..
If not .. ask me .. I will try to offer more info ..

Thank you all ..

Bob

[DaveWatkins]

So, you're storing your backups on the same array that the actual user data is on?

If not, then using backups instead of snapshots would free up that space. If so, then..... that's less than ideal.

Personally I would never consider snapshots as backups for anything. If your SAN fails it doesn't matter if you had snapshots, they are all gone. Thats the point of backups, they are on another media (preferably multiple other medias)

[Bob_MoodyTX]

So, you're storing your backups on the same array that the actual user data is on?

If not, then using backups instead of snapshots would free up that space. If so, then..... that's less than ideal.

Personally I would never consider snapshots as backups for anything. If your SAN fails it doesn't matter if you had snapshots, they are all gone. Thats the point of backups, they are on another media (preferably multiple other medias)

Technically...... yeah .. but the caveat is the replication is actually on a different array, at a different location.
So I have a somewhat twisted backup if a user whacks a file they need or a VM needs to be recovered .. and somewhat of a DR site if something bad happens ..

The alternate media concept died with my tape drive.

[DaveWatkins]

Ouch, I've been there, and it's not ideal.

I don't know which would be better in the case of snapshots or backups. If your array has good dedup and built in compression then it's probably damn near the same, if it doesn't have compression then personally I'd expect Veeam to be better for space efficiency, but that's a guess on my part

[Bob_MoodyTX]

Thank you for the insight Dave ..
I am doing the best I can with what I have.

My array is a recently updated Nimble CS300... it was a CS220 but it was at EOL and the upgrade to a 300 extended its life with the least impact on budget.