Question about GFS vs. Synthetic Full Backup

[Max93]

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have a brief question regarding our virtual machines. I have configured the GFS for all of our VMs (see screenshots), and additionally, a full backup is scheduled to be created every Sunday from all incremental backups (Synthetic Full Backup). My question is whether these synthetic full backups are necessary or if the system, through the already configured GFS, already creates full backups (see screenshots).

If so, could I deactivate these synthetic full backups, as they can take quite some time depending on their size?

Best regards,
Max

[david.domask]

Hi Max,

You will need to have either the Synthetic Full backups enabled or Active Full backups to use GFS for your Primary Jobs. GFS for Primary jobs works by finding candidates from existing Full backups, and assigning the GFS flag as appropriate.

So you will need to pick either Active Fulls or Synthetic Fulls. When we say long time for the Synthetic Fulls, how long are we talking in total and what is the approximate size of the VM? And what kind of repository? (e.g., RAID, just a bunch of disks, storage spaces with ReFS?)

[Max93]

Hi David,

Okay I understand, I thought it creates the full backups automatically when I activate “GFS”. Then I leave everything as it is.

We have around 50 VMs that run a synthetic full backup every week and it sometimes takes over 20 hours until all VMs are through.

Thank you for your help

[david.domask]

Glad I could help!

I would suggest consider an XFS or ReFS based repository and utilize fast clone on your next hardware refresh or redesign, as that should help with the speeds considerably (and also save quite a bit of space!)