Change a backup from reverse to forever incremental

[ashman70]

What are the ramifications from changing a backup job from reverse incremental that has one full job that runs once a week, to forever incremental? This job takes anywhere from 12-14 hours to run it full once a week and I'd like to just change it to forever incremental, but are there dangers in doing so? Would I still be able to do a full vm restore if I had to from the forever incremental?

[Shestakov]

Hello ashman,
There is nothing to be afraid of. Your older restore points will remain in accordance to the job`s retention policy. Full VM restore from forever incremental restore points will be possible as well as from the reverse incrementals.
Thanks!

[Vitaliy S.]

Nikita is correct, but I'm not sure that I completely understand your configuration. If you're using reversed incremental backup mode, then you are already incrementals once a week. Changing it to forever incremental that will also be triggered once a week might not speed up the backup job process. What is your current bottleneck stats?

[ashman70]

You are right I have incremental's running during the week and a full running on the weekend but the full is taking 15hrs now so I would like to avoid doing the full and perhaps replace it with a synthetic full.

[foggy]

You can try forever forward incremental and see whether everyday synthetic activity allows you to fit the backup window. That said, weekly active fulls for reverse incremental mode is a bit overkill.

[ashman70]

can you explain why weekly active fulls are overkill?

[foggy]

It was designed specifically for long incremental chains. There's also an existing thread with recommendations on full backup frequency for different backup methods.

[ashman70]

OK so then I could switch to incremental M-F with synthetic fulls on the weekend and not have to bother with fulls since I'd be switching from reverse incremental to incremental?

[foggy]

Don't confuse classic forward incremental with forever forward. The latter does not imply periodic fulls at all, you have to disable both active and synthetic.

[ashman70]

So what is the difference between an active full backup created under reverse incremental or incremental then, or is there no difference? My goal is to reduce the time the active full backup takes whichI run weekly. From what I am reading so far in this thread, it sounds like I should only run that active full either once every two weeks or once a month?

[foggy]

There's no difference in active fulls. What are the bottleneck stats for active full?

[Shestakov]

Here is also a great topic explaining Forever Incremental method and its difference from Reverse Incremental in terms of IOPs. Please take a look. Thanks.