Disk or tsm backups, Number of backups to retain – Storix Software SBAdmin User Guide User Manual
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days, the backup will not be overwritten and the user will be required to expire the backup manually
before proceeding. Refer to
for the steps to manually expire a backup.
These global retention policies may be overridden for specific jobs by
changing the
option in the job settings.
Disk or TSM Backups
Backups written to disk (or a TSM server) are never overwritten by a new backup since each backup has a
different filename (constructed using the backup Label ID, job ID, etc). A new copy of a backup will be
written to the server each time a job is re-run. This option is used to free-up space on the server by
automatically removing old backups when new backups are started. Two options are available for backups
to disk (directories):
1. Never automatically expire or remove prior disk backups of the same job.
Select this option if no backups on disk should ever be automatically expired when writing new
backups. This will require that the user manually expire and remove each prior backup that is no longer
needed. The user must take the steps to expire the older backups, else they will remain on disk
indefinitely, using storage space which may be needed by newer backups. Refer to
for the steps to manually expire a backup.
2. Automatically expire and REMOVE prior [disk/TSM] backups of the same job that are ___ days
or older.
By selecting this option, older backups of the same job that is being run will be automatically expired
and removed from server if they are over the specified number of days old. If no backups are needed
for more than 90 days, selecting this option will ensure that backups over 90 days old are removed and
replaced by a newer backup created using the same backup job.
If you enter “0” in this field, you are indicating that all prior backups of the same job will be removed
and expired before the new backup is created.
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Version 8.2 User Guide
These global retention policies may be overridden for specific jobs by
changing the
option in the job settings.
Number of Backups to Retain
In addition to, or in replacement of, the number of days that a backup must be retained, you may also
specify the number of backups that must be retained for each job. To do so, select the checkbox next to the
label Always retain a minimum number of ___ backups of the same job before automatically
expiring, and enter a number in the corresponding field.
By entering a number in this field, you will ensure that a minimum number of backups are retained for each
job before a prior backup may be automatically expired. If, however, you set your Tape or Disk retention
policy to never allow a backup to be automatically expired, this entry will have no affect.
If you have set the Tape and Disk (or TSM) retention options to always expire backups, then this setting
alone will ensure that you always retain a minimum number of backups of each job, regardless of how old
they are.
When specifying the Number of Backups to Retain, keep in mind that
this is the number of backups that will ALWAYS exist on the system. If
you specify to keep a minimum of 3 copies, there will be a total of 4
backups after running the backup job. This is because we expire only
the 4
th
backup at the start of the backup to ensure that if the backup
were to fail, you would still have your minimum of 3 backups.