Am I backing up incorrectly?

Hi Stuart -

Welcome to the Community. Let’s first take a step back. Share what product and version you are using, as well as the edition (free or otherwise). Also, what kind of backup are you doing? vSphere, Hyper-V, other VM? Agent? etc.

Here is the User Guide for vSphere VM backups for backup files behavior on Repositories using rotated drives. You’re using USB so it’s kinda different.
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_repository_rotated.html?ver=120

Here’s a list of supported devices for Repositories, and I don’t see USB listed:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_repository.html?ver=120

There are a lot of factors which determine your backup chain files - how often you backup, the retention, the Repository type, per-VM (or not) chains, immutability settings, etc.

To answer your question specifically...yes, your backup chain is more than likely unusable due to the behavior of what you’re doing. A backup chain consists of a Full and subsequent Incrementals based on your retention settings/schedule. If any files are missing, restore isn’t possible. 

To better help you out...share some more details as requested and we’ll try and get you sorted.

Best.

Hiya,

I am using Veeam Backup & Replication 12, paid for. I went through the wizard with a Veeam support person so had assumed it was all as I’d asked. He never queried the fact I was backing up to USB. I am fully aware how incremental backups/backup chains work, just wasn’t aware that’s what I was doing as, like I say, my backup file sizes seemed to me to represent the size of the actual VM.

How do I make it perform a full backup? Seems such a simple question, but going through the wizard it doesn’t look obvious. Unless I’m missing something! If I’m honest - that’s not unknown……

Thank you

Stuart

To create a Full to have a “good” backup on file, go to the Home node, Jobs, and double-click the Job to open it; rt-click a VM and select Active Full. If you have multiple VMs in the Job, you can select all of them and do the Active Full. Or, just select the whole job, rt-click, Active Full (or from the menu/Ribbon).

That’s great, thank you. How do I schedule a full one every week?

Edit your Backup Job > Storage settings > Advanced tab, and the Backup Tab:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/backup_job_advanced_backup_vm.html?ver=120

You can select to do an Active Full or Synthetic. Active is a new Full created from source (VM) files like starting a new Backup Job and Synthetic uses backup files on the storage to create a “current” Full.

Hope that helps.

Since you are rotating USB drives for backups you might also want to read this page as it explains how they work and probably why you had the issue in the first place - Backup Repositories with Rotated Drives - User Guide for VMware vSphere

Yep..I shared that link in my first comment response Chris 😊

Oops shows how well I pay attention.  My bad.  🤦🏼

All good man 😉

Thanks for the responses, it’s very much appreciated. I had no idea it was so complicated to just make a full backup of a VM once a week. It seems such a simple concept to me. I suppose in theory, as I’m wanting to just have a full backup made every time, Veeam doesn’t particularly need to be aware I’m rotating disks as the contents of the last backup would be irrelevant to it? I just need “Friday evening, backup everything on X host to f:”.

In theory yes the rotating disks would not be relevant if you do an Active Full backup every Friday.

​@S Hawkins - yes, that “should” work. Just keep in mind how Veeam works by reviewing the info (links) shared, and you should be ok. Always verify though.

Thanks people! :)

Sure thing. Let us know how it goes.

You are most welcome and let us know how you get on.