Deleted items retention question

[backupquestions]

Does enabling the "remove deleted items data after x days" option require a bunch of work space similar to the defrag and compact operation?

I was hoping that I could enable just the deleted items portion and not require an extra VBK worth of space on repository for this. Rather it would just mark the blocks in the file as able to be re used for whatever new VM is replacing an old one, OR as I see with "per vm files" enabled it would simply delete that VM's vbk chain.

In either repo config, is a bunch of "work space" required for this option or no?

[csydas]

Hi Alabaster,

As best I know with our backups, that's exactly how it works. If it's not Per-VM, the data is just flagged for overwrite (not reclaimed) so you basically just can have that space overwritten. The VBK won't shrink, but it won't grow (much). Now, certain file systems (ReFS, Dedupe appliances) will handle their writes differently, so you will still see growth as they don't really do overwrite.

[backupquestions]

Thank you. What still isn't clear to me is if during the time when the deleted items function runs, is a bunch of additional repository space temporarily needed?

As an example, if you enable the other option in the same area of "full backup file maintenance" which is called "defrag and compact full backup file" then you require at least half or more of your VBK file worth of space temporarily each time this runs.

I'm hoping that the deleted items portion does not need this temporary space each time it runs.

[veremin]

No additional space is needed. Thanks!

[backupquestions]

Awesome, thank you!