Skip to main content
Question

Can Veeam Windows agent handle swapping between external drives?

  • August 15, 2025
  • 6 comments
  • 61 views
K

Hi,

I am using the free Windows Agent program.  I have two 4TB external drives that I want to use for backups.  I don’t know if this can be done, but this is what I’m envisioning:

Drive A is in my house.  Drive B is off-site.

I connect Drive A to my laptop and kick off a full backup.  Every couple days, I reconnect Drive A and run another backup (incremental).  At the start of the next month I will go swap Drive A and Drive B.

When I connect Drive B, I want to run another Full backup.  Then every few days I run an incremental.  At the start of the next month I swap drives again.

At this point, I want to treat it as a new chain of backups and start with a Full and then go to incremental.  As long as the drive isn’t full, I don’t want to ever delete backups just because they are “old”.  Can any/all of this be automated with the Free Agent for Windows program?  Is there a better way to handle this whole thing?

Just looking for advice for this whole process.

Thanks!

6 comments

Chris.Childerhose
Forum|alt.badge.img+21
  • Chris.Childerhose
  • Veeam Legend, Veeam Vanguard
  • 9587 comments
  • August 15, 2025

Yes this would work because when you connect Drive B it would not see the previous chain and run a Full backup regardless.  So swapping will work but each time you swap a full is run.

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2024 | VMCE2023 | VMCE-SP2024 | Veeam Vanguard 8* | Veeam Legend 5* | VUG Canada Leader | vExpert 6* | Toronto VMUG Leader | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech
Tommy O'Shea
Forum|alt.badge.img+5
  • Tommy O'Shea
  • Veeam Legend
  • 359 comments
  • August 15, 2025

You can configure your backup to use rotated drives. You can find more information on how to configure that here:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforwindows/userguide/rotated_drives.html?ver=60

Tommy O’Shea, VMCE, VMCE-SP, VMCA
K
  • Kelemvor
  • Author
  • Comes here often
  • 4 comments
  • August 15, 2025

You can configure your backup to use rotated drives. You can find more information on how to configure that here:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforwindows/userguide/rotated_drives.html?ver=60

Can you expound on Step 3 where it says:

After you swap drives again, Veeam Agent detects if there is a backup chain on the currently attached drive. If the backup chain exists, Veeam Agent continues the existing chain: it creates a new incremental backup file and adds it to the existing backup files.

If I swap Drive A out, and then a month later swap it back in, there IS a backup chain on the drive, but I don’t want to use it since it’s 30 days old.  Does it only keep track of the most recent chain so it wouldn’t detect the old chain as relevant and would treat it as not having a chain?

waqasali
Forum|alt.badge.img+4
  • waqasali
  • Influencer
  • 410 comments
  • August 17, 2025

Great question ​@Kelemvor Veeam Agent for Windows does support rotated drives, but it’s key to configure the backup job with the rotated drive option enabled. Also, make sure each drive is recognized consistently using the same path or volume label helps. Thanks ​@Chris.Childerhose for the KB link, very useful!

Waqas Ali
Chris.Childerhose
Forum|alt.badge.img+21
  • Chris.Childerhose
  • Veeam Legend, Veeam Vanguard
  • 9587 comments
  • August 17, 2025

You can configure your backup to use rotated drives. You can find more information on how to configure that here:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforwindows/userguide/rotated_drives.html?ver=60

Can you expound on Step 3 where it says:

After you swap drives again, Veeam Agent detects if there is a backup chain on the currently attached drive. If the backup chain exists, Veeam Agent continues the existing chain: it creates a new incremental backup file and adds it to the existing backup files.

If I swap Drive A out, and then a month later swap it back in, there IS a backup chain on the drive, but I don’t want to use it since it’s 30 days old.  Does it only keep track of the most recent chain so it wouldn’t detect the old chain as relevant and would treat it as not having a chain?

I believe it keeps track of all chains when using rotating drives so would continue the chain.  You would probably need to force a new full to get a new chain started.

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2024 | VMCE2023 | VMCE-SP2024 | Veeam Vanguard 8* | Veeam Legend 5* | VUG Canada Leader | vExpert 6* | Toronto VMUG Leader | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech
Iams3le
Forum|alt.badge.img+11
  • Iams3le
  • Veeam Legend
  • 1547 comments
  • August 18, 2025

You can configure your backup to use rotated drives. You can find more information on how to configure that here:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforwindows/userguide/rotated_drives.html?ver=60

Can you expound on Step 3 where it says:

After you swap drives again, Veeam Agent detects if there is a backup chain on the currently attached drive. If the backup chain exists, Veeam Agent continues the existing chain: it creates a new incremental backup file and adds it to the existing backup files.

If I swap Drive A out, and then a month later swap it back in, there IS a backup chain on the drive, but I don’t want to use it since it’s 30 days old.  Does it only keep track of the most recent chain so it wouldn’t detect the old chain as relevant and would treat it as not having a chain?

I believe it keeps track of all chains when using rotating drives so would continue the chain.  You would probably need to force a new full to get a new chain started.

I totally agree with ​@Chris.Childerhose here since Veeam does not discard the chain because it is old.

[Microsoft MVP 2x | Veeam Legend (2021 -2025) | VMware vExpert 5x | Cisco Champion 3x | Object First Ace 2x]


Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement