Backup Strategy with Tapes

[VGBH]

Hello, we are using PBS 3.2-3 and want to Backup data with a single tape drive.
We used Veeam before switching to PBS and want to do the same strategy.

We have:
4 x Tapes for Monday to Thursday as daily Tapes
5 x Tapes for Friday as Weekly Tape
12 x Tapes for every month

The weekly Tape should write all Data from one week but keep 4 weeks for a monthly Tape.
Monthly Tape should write the last 4 weeks.

I tried to setup PBS Tape Backup but I have some questions.

Weekday Config:
For Monday to Thursday, I followed the Weekday Scheme example from the PBS wiki.
- I created one Media Pool for each day (mon-thu).
- Allocation Policy: mon, tue, wed or thu
- Retention Policy: overwrite

Question: Do I have to setup a time in Allocation Policy?

I created a Backup Job for each day.
- Schedule: mo or another day 23:00
- Latest Only: Yes
- Max Depth: Full


Weekly Config:
For weekly (Friday) Backups I inventoried 5 Tapes (Friday-A, Friday-B ...)
- I created one Media Pool for Friday and added the 5 Tapes to this Media Pool.
- Allocation Policy: fri
- Retention Policy: 4 weeks

I created one Backup Job for Friday.
- Schedule: fri 23:00
- Latest Only: No
- Max Depth: Full

Question: How does the Backup Job know, which weekly tape to use next? At the moment, the Backup Job want to have Friday-A. Thats because this was the first inventoried Tape for Friday. What will happen next week? Will the job go by alphabet or by time I inventoried the tapes?


Monthly Config:
For monthly Backups I inventoried 12 Tapes (January-December)
- I created one Media Pool for the last Friday of the month and added the 12 Tapes to this Media Pool.
- Allocation Policy: yearly
- Retention Policy: keep

I created one Backup Job for monthly.
- Schedule: Fri *-24..31 23:00
- Latest Only: No
- Max Depth: Full

Question: Is it possible to add an schedule with a Month e.g.: Fri *-24..31 23:00 October? I can´t find anything in this example.
This job will collapse with the weekly job because it is on the same day at the same time. Is it possible that Weekly Backup doesn't back up on the last Friday of the month?
How does the Backup job know, which monthly tape to take next?

Some Images as attachment. In this example, there are only monthly tapes from Juli to December.

 

[LeanbackIT]

Hello, we are using PBS 3.2-3 and want to Backup data with a single tape drive.
We used Veeam before switching to PBS and want to do the same strategy.

We have:
4 x Tapes for Monday to Thursday as daily Tapes
5 x Tapes for Friday as Weekly Tape
12 x Tapes for every month

The weekly Tape should write all Data from one week but keep 4 weeks for a monthly Tape.
Monthly Tape should write the last 4 weeks.

I tried to setup PBS Tape Backup but I have some questions.

Weekday Config:
For Monday to Thursday, I followed the Weekday Scheme example from the PBS wiki.
- I created one Media Pool for each day (mon-thu).
- Allocation Policy: mon, tue, wed or thu
- Retention Policy: overwrite

Question: Do I have to setup a time in Allocation Policy?

I created a Backup Job for each day.
- Schedule: mo or another day 23:00
- Latest Only: Yes
- Max Depth: Full


Weekly Config:
For weekly (Friday) Backups I inventoried 5 Tapes (Friday-A, Friday-B ...)
- I created one Media Pool for Friday and added the 5 Tapes to this Media Pool.
- Allocation Policy: fri
- Retention Policy: 4 weeks

I created one Backup Job for Friday.
- Schedule: fri 23:00
- Latest Only: No
- Max Depth: Full

Question: How does the Backup Job know, which weekly tape to use next? At the moment, the Backup Job want to have Friday-A. Thats because this was the first inventoried Tape for Friday. What will happen next week? Will the job go by alphabet or by time I inventoried the tapes?


Monthly Config:
For monthly Backups I inventoried 12 Tapes (January-December)
- I created one Media Pool for the last Friday of the month and added the 12 Tapes to this Media Pool.
- Allocation Policy: yearly
- Retention Policy: keep

I created one Backup Job for monthly.
- Schedule: Fri *-24..31 23:00
- Latest Only: No
- Max Depth: Full

Question: Is it possible to add an schedule with a Month e.g.: Fri *-24..31 23:00 October? I can´t find anything in this example.
This job will collapse with the weekly job because it is on the same day at the same time. Is it possible that Weekly Backup doesn't back up on the last Friday of the month?
How does the Backup job know, which monthly tape to take next?

Some Images as attachment. In this example, there are only monthly tapes from Juli to December.

Hi,

I'm in the same trouble, did you found a solution?

 

[VGBH]

Hi,

I'm in the same trouble, did you found a solution?

Hello,

no I did not found a solution. I wanted the same procedure like Veeam but this is not possible.

What I did:

Monday-Thursday: one Tape each day
In the Backup Job, we ticked "Latest Only" to only backup the latest changes.

Friday: six tapes for Fridays
In the Backup Job, we did not ticked "Latest Only". Everything in the Datastore (40 backups) will be written on the tape. This takes time.

Monthly: In the last Sunday of every month, we make a monthly backup.
In the Backup Job, we did not ticked "Latest Only". Everything in the Datastore (40 backups) will be written on the tape. This takes also time. This is nearly the same as a Friday tape but for a month. With this, we can restore all data from every month.

The Prune Job runs weekly and will keep 40 daily backups. With 40 backups on every friday and every month we can restore everything for one year.

I hope, this is helpful for you.

The Proxmox support also told me, you can do a much more complex backup strategy with the namespaces.

 

[LeanbackIT]

Hello,

no I did not found a solution. I wanted the same procedure like Veeam but this is not possible.

What I did:

Monday-Thursday: one Tape each day
In the Backup Job, we ticked "Latest Only" to only backup the latest changes.

Friday: six tapes for Fridays
In the Backup Job, we did not ticked "Latest Only". Everything in the Datastore (40 backups) will be written on the tape. This takes time.

Monthly: In the last Sunday of every month, we make a monthly backup.
In the Backup Job, we did not ticked "Latest Only". Everything in the Datastore (40 backups) will be written on the tape. This takes also time. This is nearly the same as a Friday tape but for a month. With this, we can restore all data from every month.

The Prune Job runs weekly and will keep 40 daily backups. With 40 backups on every friday and every month we can restore everything for one year.

I hope, this is helpful for you.

The Proxmox support also told me, you can do a much more complex backup strategy with the namespaces.

Thanks for your reply.
This could help me a lot.
I don't know if 40 Backups would fit on one tape, because my customer is on LTO5 right now, but the strategy looks nice.
I will test it.

I'm too coming from VEEAM and additionally I would like to know if it's possible to change the "next media", because my customer not always uses the tape the PBS wants. Espacially when he comes from holiday
This makes things much more complicated.
And I don't like that you can't move Tapes from one pool to the other, so that you have to fromat it first and the reassign to the other one.

 

[LeanbackIT]

The Prune Job runs weekly and will keep 40 daily backups. With 40 backups on every friday and every month we can restore everything for one year.

Do you mean you have 40 Daily, 40 weekly and 40 monthly backups? Would you post a screenshot of your prune job?

 

[VGBH]

Do you mean you have 40 Daily, 40 weekly and 40 monthly backups? Would you post a screenshot of your prune job?