Copy job to RD1000 with rotating media?

[v33@m3r]

Hi There,

I have a standalone ESXi host, with an External Dell USB3 RD1000 RDX drive (Tandberg) ..attached to the Veeam VM via USB Passthrough).
I need some guidance on what would be the best setup:

I was thinking of running reverse incrementals of everything to a local repository on a VMDK file as there is loads of space (I'd like the ability to do a prompt, full restore of a VM or files from a local repository that is always in the same place, without relying on any external media or user intervention)
For offsite storage, I was planning to set up a scheduled backup copy job to copy the backups to the RD1000 RDX cartridges.
Questions..
Does the backup 'copy' job also support rotating media?
The original plan was to always swap the cartridge each day, but it now sounds like it won't be done as regular as that sounds, so I'm wondering what way the jobs could be configured to accommodate for inconsistent cartridge swaps.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions related to this

[foggy]

Yes, backup copy jobs also support rotated drives scenario. Basically, everything you should do, is enable the corresponding option in repository settings.

[v33@m3r]

Great stuff, thanks Foggy. I'll have a good read through that
Can I make both the original job and the copy jobs of type "reverse incremental"?

For my approach with the 2x RDX drives, I'll be having the copy jobs running nightly, and the cartridges will be swapped whenever possible.
I've been reading that 14 page topic from Veeam V7 about rotating media, and does it work the same in v8?

EG.. I think this is how it would have worked in v7 with 2 cartridges..so is it the same now?

"
1. Run the job against Cartridge 1, this will create some backup files there. Take the cartridge offsite once full, or as needed.
2. Run the job against Cartridge 2, this will create some backup files there (including the new full backup), take the cartridge offsite.
-Bring Cartridge 1 (with the oldest backups) from the offsite location back to your office, and plug it back in.
-Next job iteration will run against Cartridge 1 again. The job will not see any backup files from the previous step 2 on this cartridge, understand that this is some old cartridge that you now want to be reused, and will clean it up from any existing files automatically.

Thanks in advance

[foggy]

Can I make both the original job and the copy jobs of type "reverse incremental"?

Backup copy jobs are always forward incremental, you cannot choose the backup method for them.

-Next job iteration will run against Cartridge 1 again. The job will not see any backup files from the previous step 2 on this cartridge, understand that this is some old cartridge that you now want to be reused, and will clean it up from any existing files automatically.

This should not happen with v8, it is able to continue existing incremental chain on the repository.

[v33@m3r]

Hi Foggy,

Thanks again - much appreciated

So I can have reverse incremental for my primary job, and then the copy job is automatically forward incremental?
So in V8, the job no longer deletes old backup files and just gets on with it? So the restore point / retention setting in the job is now applied (rather than the retention being set by the frequency of your cartridge swaps?)

So say for example, in addition to my current setup, I wanted to create another primary job (to my local repository on the ESXi hosts) that runs once a month, with 12 restore points configured (so that we can restore historical data from monthly backups in lets say..11 months time)
I could in theory also configure a copy job for this monthly job, and set this to run at the end of the month, to a second, new repository on the RDX media with 12 month 'style' retention settings?
(I believe that to have this 'Monthly' data on both tapes, I would schedule the same monthly job to run two days in a row, and ensure that the local backup administrator puts in the second cartridge the following day?)
Would all of this be possible?
(Eg - to use 2 RDX cartridges for a standard weekly rotation with 7 restore points (as discussed previously), and to also have a repository set for monthly jobs that is only overwritten once a year)

I guess the simpler option would be to have one or two dedicated RDX cartridges for Monthly Jobs, but this may be too expensive for a very small setup.

If anyone has comments, feel free to post
Thanks!

[foggy]

So I can have reverse incremental for my primary job, and then the copy job is automatically forward incremental?

Correct.

So in V8, the job no longer deletes old backup files and just gets on with it? So the restore point / retention setting in the job is now applied (rather than the retention being set by the frequency of your cartridge swaps?)

Correct.

So say for example, in addition to my current setup, I wanted to create another primary job (to my local repository on the ESXi hosts) that runs once a month, with 12 restore points configured (so that we can restore historical data from monthly backups in lets say..11 months time)
I could in theory also configure a copy job for this monthly job, and set this to run at the end of the month, to a second, new repository on the RDX media with 12 month 'style' retention settings?

Yes, copy job can implement this (either with simple retention, where each monthly restore point will be an incremental file, or with GFS configured, where each monthly restore point will be a separate full).