Limitations and Considerations for GFS Retention Policy

Before configuring the GFS retention policy for a backup copy job, consider the following limitations and considerations:

General Settings

Consider the following for general settings of a backup copy job:

Periodic Copy Mode

If you want to use the periodic copy mode, consider the following:

  • If Veeam Backup & Replication does not manage to transfer the restore point according to backup copy schedule, Veeam Backup & Replication will finalize the transfer anyway.
  • Veeam Backup & Replication creates a GFS full backup even if the GFS full backup creation is scheduled when the backup copy scheduled run is not finished. On the day when the GFS full backup must be created, Veeam Backup & Replication shows a warning that the current backup copy scheduled run will be completed. The way Veeam Backup & Replication behaves further depends on the selected backup copy GFS method:
  • In case of the synthetic full method, Veeam Backup & Replication first copies data for an incremental backup from the source backup repository and then, on the target backup repository, synthesizes the GFS full backup using this data and data of the already stored backup files.
  • In case of the active full method, Veeam Backup & Replication copies data for the GFS full backup from the source backup repository and creates the GFS full backup on the target backup repository. 

Page updated 9/15/2025

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