Short-Term Retention Policy
Restore points in the backup chain are not kept forever. They are removed according to the retention policy. The retention policy helps maintain the life cycle of restore points and make sure that backup files do not consume the whole disk space.
By default, Veeam Agent for Mac retains 7 latest restore points. You can define a different number in the backup job settings. During every backup job session, Veeam Agent checks if there is any obsolete restore point in the backup chain. If some restore point is obsolete, it is removed from the chain.
Removing Backups by Retention
When removing obsolete restore points, Veeam Agent for Mac does not simply delete backup files from disk. It transforms the backup chain so that the backup chain always contains a full backup file on which subsequent incremental backup files are dependent. To maintain the consistency of the backup chain, Veeam Agent uses the following rotation scheme:
- During every backup job session, Veeam Agent adds a backup file to the backup chain and checks if there is an obsolete restore point.
- If an obsolete restore point exists, Veeam Agent transforms the backup chain. As part of this process, it performs the following operations:
- Veeam Agent re-builds the full backup file to include in it data of the incremental backup file that follows the full backup file. To do this, Veeam Agent injects into the full backup file data blocks from the earliest incremental backup file in the chain. This way, a full backup ‘moves’ forward in the backup chain.
- The earliest incremental backup file is removed from the chain as redundant: its data has already been injected into the full backup file, and the full backup file includes data of this incremental backup file.
