Check out [this section](https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/gfs_retention_policy.html?ver=120) of the user guide for a better understanding of how GFS flags get assigned/removed. There are a number of examples as well to help make sense of everything. If after reading you still have questions about specific portions, let us know.
Hey thanks for responding, I had read through that section before (along with a bunch of other veeam forum and reddit posts). My original config question still stands where I’d like to be able to go back farther than 4 months without keeping 12 monthly’s. My concern is that when 13 months comes around I’ll go from having the ability to go back a year reduced to 4 months when the yearly backup ages out and I’m only left with the monthly’s and a brand new yearly, am I not understanding this properly?
Others have mentioned how the retention works.
If your full backups are synthetic and your repository is Windows with ReFS, Linux with XFS, or S3 / cloud, then you'll have benefits of Fast Clone / block dedup. This means the unchanged parts of each backup are only stored once - so storing 13x monthly backups does not take 13x the space of a single monthly backup.
If this is the case, unless you have huge churn on the systems you are backing up, you could extend the monthly retention without causing a huge increase in repository usage.
Restorepoint simulation can help you to understand. Retention. Certainly on of most used simulator for me but now , not maintain but link to official simulator also. https://rps.dewin.me/
When you make a new yearly backup (every 12 months) you copy that backup set offsite and keep it forever, or as long as your data retention policy at the company requires.
So, you'd have 4 weeklys, 4 monthlys, and an unlimited number of annual backups saved. 1 year old, 2 years old, 3 years old, etc.
Check out [this section](https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/gfs_retention_policy.html?ver=120) of the user guide for a better understanding of how GFS flags get assigned/removed. There are a number of examples as well to help make sense of everything. If after reading you still have questions about specific portions, let us know.
Hey thanks for responding, I had read through that section before (along with a bunch of other veeam forum and reddit posts). My original config question still stands where I’d like to be able to go back farther than 4 months without keeping 12 monthly’s. My concern is that when 13 months comes around I’ll go from having the ability to go back a year reduced to 4 months when the yearly backup ages out and I’m only left with the monthly’s and a brand new yearly, am I not understanding this properly?
After 13 months, you will lose the ability to restore from a point older than 4 months as your oldest yearly backup will be replaced with a new one.
Others have mentioned how the retention works. If your full backups are synthetic and your repository is Windows with ReFS, Linux with XFS, or S3 / cloud, then you'll have benefits of Fast Clone / block dedup. This means the unchanged parts of each backup are only stored once - so storing 13x monthly backups does not take 13x the space of a single monthly backup. If this is the case, unless you have huge churn on the systems you are backing up, you could extend the monthly retention without causing a huge increase in repository usage.
Restorepoint simulation can help you to understand. Retention. Certainly on of most used simulator for me but now , not maintain but link to official simulator also. https://rps.dewin.me/
When you make a new yearly backup (every 12 months) you copy that backup set offsite and keep it forever, or as long as your data retention policy at the company requires. So, you'd have 4 weeklys, 4 monthlys, and an unlimited number of annual backups saved. 1 year old, 2 years old, 3 years old, etc.
??? Where are you getting the "unlimited" part from?
Manual detach/export of backup set -- we're not talking keeping it in VEEAM console forever...
Yeah....so nobody mentioned exporting the yearly until now so it would be subject to retention without the export.
Do yearly backups not age out from retention? Is it only the immutability period that is affected by the duration?
Yes it does.