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Tape Retention

  • May 7, 2026
  • 5 comments
  • 22 views

hs08
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  • Comes here often

Anyone can help me to understand about this picture?

When the tape retention is over then backup day 1 will be removed and this mean 1st full backup wlll be removed. Then how we can restore the VM to the Monday? Isn’t restoring the incremental need the last full backup?

 

5 comments

Tommy O'Shea
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  • Veeam Legend
  • May 7, 2026

Tapes that contain restore points still within retention will not be marked as expired until the final point before the next Virtual (Think synthesized) Full goes out of retention.


hs08
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  • Author
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  • May 7, 2026

 

Let say my tape retention id 90 with asuming every month is 30 days and the virtual full backup will happen on 1st day every month. So the timeline is :

  • Day 1 Full backup
  • Day 2 - 30 Incremental
  • Day 31 Virtual Full Backup
  • Day 32 - 60 Incremental
  • Day 61 Virtual Full Backup
  • Day 62 - 90 Incremental

 

Day 91 is the retention is over and veeam will delete full backup on Day 1? Or veeam will postpone deletion Day 1 until next 30 days?


Tommy O'Shea
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  • Veeam Legend
  • May 7, 2026

The full created on Day 1 is required until day 30's incremental is 90 days old.

So day 1's full will not be marked as expired until day 121.


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  • Experienced User
  • May 7, 2026

 

Let say my tape retention id 90 with asuming every month is 30 days and the virtual full backup will happen on 1st day every month. So the timeline is :

  • Day 1 Full backup
  • Day 2 - 30 Incremental
  • Day 31 Virtual Full Backup
  • Day 32 - 60 Incremental
  • Day 61 Virtual Full Backup
  • Day 62 - 90 Incremental

 

Day 91 is the retention is over and veeam will delete full backup on Day 1? Or veeam will postpone deletion Day 1 until next 30 days?

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbr/userguide/tape_data_retention.html?ver=13#:~:text=During,expires

During the retention period, Veeam Backup & Replication will not overwrite data on tape. If a tape contains several backup sets, it will expire when the backup set with the longest retention period expires.

 

Tape will be expired as soon as the backup set with LONGEST retention set on tape meets retention. (e.g., retention date for the backup set is furthest in the future) There is no retention for individual backups on tape, retention is applied to tapes themselves.

Once the backup set with longest retention on a tape is expired, tape is eligible for overwrite. 

If you have 90 day retention on tape and do:

Day 1 Any backup

Day 45 Any Backup

Day 89 Any backup

Tape is written to full, no more data can be added
 

Tape will be expired on day 90+89, and at that point be eligible for overwrite.


Jean.peres.bkp
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See if this helps, please.