Standalone backup agent for Microsoft Windows servers and workstations (formerly Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE)
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Backup.Operator
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How to set the backup retention in Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows ?

Post by Backup.Operator »

Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows v6.3.2


What are the steps I must take to set the backup retention to no longer than 7days, and then delete the oldest backup file?

I need to keep the destination shared folder space usage in check.

Thank you.
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Nils
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Re: How to set the backup retention in Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows ?

Post by Nils » 1 person likes this post

VAW's retention period is defined by the number you specify in Local Storage/Keep backup for xx days, the backup frequency and the method.

Once the number of days (backups) is reached, old backups are deleted unless they're still required for the backup chain covering the most recent xx backups.

E.g. if you specify 7 days with a daily backup and a full backup once a week, an old chain only gets removed when the new chain has reached 7 backups - effectively, your storage needs to hold 7-14 days of backups.
If you want at most 7 days, ýou'd need to run two full backups a week (e.g. Friday, Tuesday), and specify 3 days to keep.

See https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agent ... tml?ver=60 for more information.
Backup.Operator
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Re: How to set the backup retention in Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows ?

Post by Backup.Operator »

@Nils,

Thank you, I have set it to just 3 days, but how come the incremental backup files are 13 in total with just two Full backup files, like below?

Image

If I set the backup to just 1 day

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agent ... tml?ver=60
Will this delete the oldest backup files?
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Nils
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Re: How to set the backup retention in Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows ?

Post by Nils »

Keep backup for at least 3 days[/i ] means the old chain (full + all incrementals before the new full) gets deleted when the new chain has reached 3 backups (full + 2 incrementals). Setting retention to 1 means the previous chain is deleted when a full is finished.
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