Synthetic Full take a week

[leduke]

Hello.

I got a problem on veeam 6.5. I select "transform previous full backup chains into rollbacks" on Saturday.

All my backup jobs were fine all the week, but on Saturday, my backup job is locked on "Synthetic Full" (16% done)... Last week this operation takes 5 days long.

I unselect "transform previous full backup chains into rollbacks", but the synthetic full is still running on Saturday.

How can I do to skip this "synthetic full" ?

Thank you.

[foggy]

Alex, take a look at your backup mode settings (the same place where you have enabled/disabled transform feature) - you definitely have synthetic full set to run on Saturdays (check box right above the transform check box). You can disable synthetic fulls by clearing that check box, however, note that it is recommended to have periodic fulls (either active or synthetic) for a number of reasons.

[dellock6]

Probably your target storage is too slow to do synthetic fulls or transforms. If you have enought space to hold another week of backups, maybe is better to switch to forward incremental backups.

Luca.

[leduke]

OK thank you for answering.

Is it possible to stop the job while performing ? It may corrupt the datatbase... ?

Thank you.

[foggy]

Provided that you have transform option disabled, you will have the latest (currently being created synthetic) full backup file in inconsistent state after stopping the job. All older restore points will not be affected.

[leduke]

Are we able to modify all that parameters on the job or must I recreate It ? Because when I uncheck the box "transform previous full backup chains into rollbacks", the job is steel going to transform the older backup from full to rollback...

Thank you

[foggy]

This change should take effect starting from the next job run, no need to re-create it. Do you observe alternate behavior?

[leduke]

Not yet, i was not on site, I will try to modify settings tomorow. I will tell you...

Thanks a lot

[leduke]

I modify the parameters for my Job on my slow storage... I now perform a "reversed incremental" backup (in veeam documentation this method is recomended for disk to disk backup, the Incremental is recomended for disk to disk to tape ou WAN backup) and added a weekly "Active Full". I hop that it will be OK, now...

[veremin]

Hi, Alex.

You should be aware that with reversed incremental mode the need for performing active full backup isn’t so strong. According to the best practice mentioned here, it’s considered to be less important and should be performed not so frequently, once every 1-3 months.

Additionally, it might be worth reviewing this topic.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[leduke]

So If I've got a fast storage system for my backup's target, what is the best backup option for a disk to disk (NAS) backup ?

Thanks

[foggy]

It fully depends on your backup/restore requirements, there's no universal approach. Probably, this backup modes comparison will help you with your decision.

[leduke]

Thank you for this document, it helps a lot.
With Reverse INcremental it is specified that "Last backup is always full", what does it Mean ? Each rollbackp point will refered to the last full ?

Thank you.

[veremin]

It means that the most recent restore point is always a full backup(.vbk), and it gets updated after every backup cycle, VB&R injects changes into the .vbk file to rebuild it to the most recent state of a VM.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[foggy]

Alex, consider reviewing user guide at p.26 for better understanding of the backup modes. Thanks.