Can We take differential backup without taking full backup in symantec backup exec 2014

[lead_support]

Iam having one server for which we are taking full as well as diffrential backup. Iam having two drive in my library. As full backup takes 6 days to complete so we are taking diffrential backup on second drive. We are working in backup exec 2010. Now we are going to upgrade to version 2014 but in 2014 there is no option to create diffrential backup without completing full backup so please suggest.

[pkh · Accepted solution]

No.  For BE 2014, there is no way to run a differential backup without running a full backup first.

Am I to understand that at the moment, with BE 2010, you are running a differential backup while the full backup is running.  If this is so, then you are doing it wrongly.  A differential backup should be run AFTER the full backup has completed.

[Steve_4]

Pkh is correct but to expand and offer a solution:

Going off the basis that you do not intend to run a full backup you have two options:

A) Run a full backup. Set this backup to have no schedule so that it does not need to run again.
   (i) Create a differential to backup changes from the original full backup.

B) Set the full backup to have no schedule.
   (i) Create an incremental backup. This will continue to build on itself and does not require a full backup              initially.

So if you cannot run a full backup regularly due to the size of the files, then your only way to do this will be option B. If you would prefer to do a differential, and your largest files do not change frequently, then do option A.
 

Regards,
Steve

[Colin_Weaver]

As an aside we do not recommend running either incremental for ever (or really differential for ever)  strategies in any version of Backup Exec, just in case something happens that negatively affect earlier parts of the backup chain. As such you would need to refersh the full periodically and it might therefore be  better idea to think about whether or not the job that takes 6 days can be split up into separate disks.

The other option is think about Backup to disk or backup to dedup followed by duplication to tape, typically the performance limiting factor will be the tapes. Yes I know this might require investment in disk storage, but 6 days is an extreme amount of time to be running one full backup over and you should probably consider investigating in hardware and software options to give you greater throughpout anyway.

[LegAEI]

Another option to look in to is synthetic full, but you need the caso license to use it as of last year. This might have changed. You will also have to use a disk target and not tape (which it sounds like you are backing up to.)

How much data is this that it takes six days to run a full backup?

[piasukIT]

I was just wondering if I can create an Incremental backup using the log of a full backup rather than making the full backup itself. I have a NAS drive with about 20-30 Tb of data on it (we are a music / video company) and did a one time full backup of it about a couple of months ago. I did the full backup on LTO5 Tapes and had to do it in stages as the 24 tapes in the library would fill up before the backup would end.

I now want to schedule an Incremental backup but don't want to go through doing a full backup again (Not that I don't want to do it but I don't require a 30 tape full backup again). So i was wondering if we can schedule an Incremental Backup that would reference to the one time backup log and do the incremental as of there. Is that possible you reckon?

Cheers