SQL Express big enough?

[lando_uk]

We are trying to reduce SQL licensing costs.
I know this could be ticky to answer, but would SQL express (10GB) be ok for 8 hosts, 100 VMs, 24 months retention?

Our old environment had 15 hosts,300+ VMs, 3 years and that was about 60GB.

Do we just suck it and see, maybe just lower the retention if if it's close to 10GB or move to Standard down the road?

[ronnmartin61]

Yes if that's the sum total of your environment. We don't recommend cutting over to SQL proper for environments < 500 VM's see https://bp.veeam.com/vbr/2_Design_Struc ... abase.html

Sorry...didn't notice this was in the Veeam ONE forum before responding

Please take a look at our calculator (Excel sheet download) referenced at https://www.veeam.com/kb2246. It should give you a better understanding of the requirements for your environment. Sorry about the confusion on my end...

[jorgedlcruz]

Best route of action is to use the calculator. But I can already see it would need something else beyond express.
Perhaps with backup data only selection, or custom, and tune what you recollect, etc. Long shot, I wouls totally go for a standard, and size it properly in terms of CPU/RAM, and SSD for the perf cache partition