Aller au contenu principal

GFS backup scheme

Thread needs solution

Hi,

As mentioned in another thread, I've set up a GFS backup scheme for one of my clients on 4 PCs.

I'd like to better understand this scheme ... from what I read here (http://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/ABR10/#1371.html) I was a bit confused over how the daily (incremental) backups will work.

In the backup plan I set up, I have the following:

Daily: keep for 1 month
Weekly: keep for 7 weeks
Monthly: keep for 6 months

I may adjust this to better suit the client and storage limitations, but part of the intention is to have access to the last month's worth of daily backups available for restoration. Will this work? Do the incremental backups rely on the last Full backup (whichever they come after), or a combination of the last full + differential backups?

In the linked explanation of GFS above, the "resulting archive: real" example didn't make a lot of sense. I couldn't figure out why some of the incremental backups were pink (i.e. would not be deleted, even though they were past retention) ... if incremental backups rely on the last Full backup, wouldn't that mean that all the incrementals would be retained until the next full backup? If they only rely on the last full + differential backups, why are there pink incremental backups? (wouldn't the differential backup that took place after them mean they weren't needed anymore?)

Thanks for your help in understanding how GFS by Acronis works.

0 Users found this helpful

Incremental backup depend on the previous backup of any kind - be it full, differential or another incremental. Differentials depend on full only. So the chain of incremental backups depends on the first of the chain (that's why chain) and the first one gets pink.

OK, now I understand... because the previous week still had at least one incremental that needed to be kept, due to retention rules, and so the previous incrementals of that week also were needed. Makes sense now.

Thanks for explaining.