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NAS File Share backup VS Windows Agent backup


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I have a 5 TB file share on Windows. Should I back this up using agent backup or File Share backup? I  have a backup copy job to send backups offsite. Currently doing file share backup with retention time set to 4 years. I think the agent based backup would take up more repo disk space (multiple vbk files)?

Best answer by MicoolPaul

NAS Backup can go to object storage to btw @Chris.Childerhose ðŸ™‚

In summary though NAS backup jobs are great for file versioning, and necessary for huge (64TB+) volumes unless you’ve got SAN Storage Snapshot integration.

 

NAS backup consumes more VUL instances than an agent (first 500GB is free per share but one VUL instance per 500GB above) so I’d look into the features of NAS and if you don’t need anything specific I’d stick to agent, the topology is simpler for starters, aka just an agent, no cache repo and proxy!

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Chris.Childerhose
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  • January 11, 2024

The answer to that question is - it depends.  Both options work.  VBR can manage the backup and use a repository server to send the backups to and then you can add it to your BCJ.

The Agent can send directly to a Veeam Repository, Veeam Cloud Connect or Object Storage directly if you wanted to.  It may tend to be slower if the machine is being used while backups are running.

If it was me, I would opt to have VBR do the backups for you using File Share Backup.


MicoolPaul
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  • January 11, 2024

NAS Backup can go to object storage to btw @Chris.Childerhose ðŸ™‚

In summary though NAS backup jobs are great for file versioning, and necessary for huge (64TB+) volumes unless you’ve got SAN Storage Snapshot integration.

 

NAS backup consumes more VUL instances than an agent (first 500GB is free per share but one VUL instance per 500GB above) so I’d look into the features of NAS and if you don’t need anything specific I’d stick to agent, the topology is simpler for starters, aka just an agent, no cache repo and proxy!


Chris.Childerhose
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MicoolPaul wrote:

NAS Backup can go to object storage to btw @Chris.Childerhose ðŸ™‚

In summary though NAS backup jobs are great for file versioning, and necessary for huge (64TB+) volumes unless you’ve got SAN Storage Snapshot integration.

 

NAS backup consumes more VUL instances than an agent (first 500GB is free per share but one VUL instance per 500GB above) so I’d look into the features of NAS and if you don’t need anything specific I’d stick to agent, the topology is simpler for starters, aka just an agent, no cache repo and proxy!

Thanks, I missed adding that to my post.  ðŸ˜‹


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  • January 12, 2024

I found that file share backups takes less time to copy to offsite since its just incrementals. Agent based backups would create periodic vbk files that would be too large to send across to the off site.


Chris.Childerhose
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Arin wrote:

I found that file share backups takes less time to copy to offsite since its just incrementals. Agent based backups would create periodic vbk files that would be too large to send across to the off site.

Glad you were able to sort out what was best, and I figured this would be the way to go. ðŸ˜‰

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