Upgrading Backup Chain Formats

Veeam Backup & Replication supports the following ways to store backup files: per-machine backup with separate metadata files, per-machine backup with single metadata file and single-file backup. For more information, see Backup Chain Formats.

Changing the Use per-machine backup files option for existing backup repositories or moving backups to other repositories does not change the backup chain format. To change the format, follow the instructions in this section.

Note

Consider the following:

Change the backup chain format only for backups created successfully.
Before changing the backup chain format, Veeam Backup & Replication disables the job to which the backups belong. After the change, the job stays disabled. You need to enable it manually.
You must disable the log backup jobs manually before changing the format.
[For backups stored on repositories with immutability enabled] You can upgrade backups from per-machine backup with single metadata file to per-machine backup with separate metadata files. Other upgrades are not possible.
You can stop an upgrade session only for the backups for which the session has not started. If the session has started, Veeam Backup & Replication continues the upgrade to avoid backup corruption.

Per-Machine Backup with Single Metadata File to Per-Machine with Separate Metadata Files

To change the backup chain format from per-machine with single metadata file to per-machine with separate metadata files, use the upgrade functionality:

Open the Home view.
In the inventory pane, select the Backups node.
In the working area, select the necessary jobs. Note that the selected jobs must be targeted to the same repository.
Right-click one of the selected jobs and click Upgrade backup chain format. Alternatively, click Upgrade Backup Chain Format on the ribbon.

Veeam Backup & Replication will generate new metadata files for the existing backups. After the upgrade, the job will continue the backup chain and create per-machine backups with separate metadata files.

Other Formats

To change the backup chain format, you must detach the existing backup chain from the job and then target the job to the required repository:

Detach backups from the job for whose backups you want to change the backup chain format. For more information, see Detaching Backups from Jobs.
Make sure that the job is targeted to a repository with the necessary state of the Use per-machine backup files check box.

You can edit job settings and check the backup repository to which the job is targeted. Or, edit the repository settings to ensure the target repository has Use per-machine backup files check box selected. The selected check box is for per-machine backups with separate metadata files, the cleared check box is for single-file backups.

Note

You cannot upgrade the backup chain to the per-machine backup with single metadata file as this format is obsolete since Veeam Backup & Replication version 12.

To create backup files of the required backup chain format, launch the job. The job will create active full backups.

Note

If the job has a backup to tape job configured as a secondary target, the backup to tape job will archive a full backup during its next scheduled run.