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A
Userlevel 7
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Hey guys, I have another query.

If I create a backup let’s say full backup on Monday, retention policy is 7 days and synthetic backup on saturday. On saturday once the full backup is created, will the previous backups merge to this full backup and get deleted once retention policy is expired ?

Another question: consider the 1st question scenario in the backup settings, now if a customer deletes a backup on tuesday and reports this 20 days later, can he use the synthetic backups to recover the data?

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Best answer by MicoolPaul 8 November 2021, 11:09

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MicoolPaul
Userlevel 7
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Hey guys, I have another query.

If I create a backup let’s say full backup on Monday, retention policy is 7 days and synthetic backup on saturday. On saturday once the full backup is created, will the previous backups merge to this full backup and get deleted once retention policy is expired ?

Another question: consider the 1st question scenario in the backup settings, now if a customer deletes a backup on tuesday and reports this 20 days later, can he use the synthetic backups to recover the data?

Morning! Nope the synthetic full just starts a new chain, you COULD leverage forever forward incremental to tie your VIBs to a new backup file (More Information Here: Forever Forward Incremental Backup - User Guide for VMware vSphere (veeam.com)), but you require the VIBs to protect the data from that specific day regardless of what you do with the chain.

 

Incrementals just store differential data whereas a synthetic or active full contains all data, incrementals therefore have a dependency on the backup chain, whereas a synthetic/active is independent.

So in response to your second question, the synthetic full will only contain the data that was in the production system the day it was created.

Michael Paul - #VeeamLegend | #VeeamVanguard | Veeam Certified Architect | VMware vExpert | https://micoolpaul.com | Twitter: @MicoolPaul | Mastodon: @micoolpaul@masto.nu | Bluesky: @micoolpaul.bsky.social
patricio.rcm
Userlevel 6
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No, you are talking about Forward Incremental Backup, and there isn’t merge operations for that backup mode.

On Saturday you will have a new full backup, and Veeam will wait until you have 6 additional incremental backups before being able to remove the restore point from previous week.  So, in your case, you will have up to 13 restore points instead of 7.  Once Veeam creates the restore point number 14, then the 7 initial restore points (1 full + 6 incrementals) will be removed.

 

Please check this link from official documentation about how the retention works:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/retention_incremental.html?ver=110

 

As Michael said, another option is just to use Forever Forward Incremental without having weekly full backups:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/retention_forever_incremental.html?ver=110

Patricio Cerda
A
Userlevel 7
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But synthetic will contain pointers to previous backups, will that be useful for restore?

patricio.rcm
Userlevel 6
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Synthetic full is a all new backup file.  The only case when Synthetic full contains pointers to data blocks from previous backup files is when the backup repository is using ReFS as a file system instead of NTFS.

Patricio Cerda
MicoolPaul
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

Synthetic full is a all new backup file.  The only case when Synthetic full contains pointers to data blocks from previous backup files is when the backup repository is using ReFS as a file system instead of NTFS.

To expand on this, using forever forward is where you can change the full backup that the incrementals point to, but a full backup, synthetic or active will both be independent from others (other than anything performed at a file system/SAN level as indicated by @patricio.rcm )

Michael Paul - #VeeamLegend | #VeeamVanguard | Veeam Certified Architect | VMware vExpert | https://micoolpaul.com | Twitter: @MicoolPaul | Mastodon: @micoolpaul@masto.nu | Bluesky: @micoolpaul.bsky.social

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