How to delete old backups on NAS automatically?

[FredyWenger]

Hi

We work with BE 12.

As we have incredible problems with the backup to tape (almost all backups don’t run and we cannot findout the reason) we have bought a NAS (32 TB) to save the backups on the NAS.

To change the backup-job from tape to the NAS, I have copied the Job for the tape and reconfigured the copy to target the NAS instead of the tape.

Then, I have deactivated the backup to tape job and activated the backup to NAS job.

The backup to NAS job works now without problems, but I’m not able to delete old backups automatically yet.

The full-backup is configured to run all week-days (Mo-Fr) at 19.00

Under “Media Set Properties” I have set:

- Overwrite protection to: 1 Weeks (in my undestanding 5 days -> Mo-Fr)

- Append period Overwrite protection to: 1 Weeks

=> This option is absolutely unclear (what does this means in practice)

Under Tools-Options, I have changed to Media overwrite options:

From “Overwrite scratch media....”

To

Overwrite recyable media...

(this, according to a posting, I found here in the forum)

=> This option also is absolutely unclear (what does this means in practice)

=> Further, this option is a general option (should affect tape- and file backups)

==> So.. if we want to make ab backup to tape -> do we have to rechange this option back?

Conclusion: the goal is to:

- To set the backup-options

  - Actually I have set one week, if the job deletes old backups correct, I want to set it to two or three weeks

-  If the “Overwrite protection” (1/2/3 Weeks) is reached, BE has to delete the oldest backup automatically from NAS

How to reach this?

Step-by-step advice pleas (as I’m NOT a BE specialist)

Thanks

[Colin_Weaver]

prior to BE 2010 R3 (so including BE 12) disk based backup sets were only deleted as  part of an overwrite operation and there wa sno automated way to delet them ealier

BE 2012 and later introduced DLM to manage disk based sets - which means that BKF files and imG folders were be delets just after their expiry time (as long as no dependent sets exists such as incrementals linked to fulls and as long as it is not part of the last complete recovery chain for a specific backup resource)

So assuming you didn't get BE 12 and BE 2012 muddled up to achieve automatic deletion of disk based backups you need to plan to upgrade to a newer version of BE (preferable BE 15 FP5 which is due to get released in the next week or so - BE 15 FP4 is availabel now it is just FP5 has some enhancements and fixes that affect DLM)

If you did get BE 12 and BE 2012 muddled up then you probably need to be aware that DLM did have some issues in BE 2012 (after all it was version 1.0 of DLM) and the recommendation woudl be to upgrade to BE 15 FP4 to avoid those issues as well.

Before going to BE 15 however makes sure you carefully check the Hardware and Sofwtare Compatibility lists against your environment as if you are running any older technologies (32bit hardware for the BE server itself, older operating systems etc) then you may not be supported by the new version. (Oh and you will need updated licenses so I hope you continued to invest in support and miantenance agreements with us)