Compare Synthetic backups

[Sam_Gooble]

This is not about how synthetic backup works. Its about verifying the consistency and ensuring that synthetic backup infact is working fine, at any given time.

Per books, if i understand it well, we perform one full baseline backup first, followed by incrementals and/or synthetic backups. Synthetic backups combines the baseline with following incrementals to form a new baseline. Next time synthetic is run, it becomes a new baseline.

Here is the question:

What if the first baseline backup was corrupted? aren't we out of luck? since synthetic backup doesnt backup files from source, in other words its only a offline backup.

So, just for verification, if we did a full backup job of the source and compared it with the most recent synthetic backup at any time, if everything worked fine, those two should be identical. (at least most part!)

Is there any other process by which we can check the consistency of synthetic backup jobs?

Any thoughts?

-Sam

[Renuka_-]

Hello,
Yes you do always require the baseline backup. Yes a full backup job of the source and compared it with the most recent synthetic backup at any time, if everything worked fine, the two should be identical.

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[Sam_Gooble]

I dont think you will need a baseline backup after creating a new synthetic backup, since the new Synthetic backup becomes the baseline. Am i missing something?

I was wondering what is the verification mechanism that one can apply for checking if the synthetic backups are completed successfully? other than restoring the backup?

Also wanted to know if there is a compare utility available to compare two different backup files?

-Sam