This is an archive version of the document. To get the most up-to-date information, see the current version.

Retention Policy

Every successful backup job session creates a new restore point that lets you roll back VM data to an earlier point in time. To control the number of restore points in the backup chain, you must specify retention policy settings. The retention policy defines how many restore points you want to retain on disk and thus how ‘far’ you are able to roll back. After the allowed number of restore points is exceeded, Veeam Backup & Replication automatically removes the earliest restore point from the backup chain.

To define the retention policy for a backup job, you must specify the necessary number of restore points in the Restore points to keep on disk field in the backup job settings. By default, Veeam Backup & Replication keeps 14 restore points on disk.

Retention Policy

Veeam Backup & Replication handles restore points in different ways for forever forward incremental, forward incremental and reverse incremental backup chains:

Retention Policy Note:

When the allowed number of restore points in the backup chain is exceeded, Veeam Backup & Replication deletes the whole backup file, not separate VMs from it. For more information, see Removal of Restore Points.