Hello @Ken_H 

Two things come to mind immediately. The first is object retention, ie keeping deleted items for the job. Take a look at  the following tab on the subclient properties:

If that is selected it may explain it.

Secondly sometimes we need to use reconciliation to check data on the client vs our index. Can you check to make sure this is selected? It should be on.

Disclaimer, I inherited this system and am not the person that did this configuration.

“Extended storage policy retention” is checked but greyed out and Minimum retention has been set to “Retain objects indefinitely”.  It looks like I may have backups that never expire.

If possible, I’d appreciate if you could provide a link to documentation that explains this. 

In the meantime, I’ll see what info I can get via google.

Ken

Great, I am glad that the issue is one of those options:)

This page should give you what you need.

https://documentation.commvault.com/2022e/expert/61633_subclient_properties_retention.html

So the deleted item retention is likely to be why you didn't see the drop in size, you will see it drop off in 2 years time.

Let me see if I understand this.

• Minimum retention based on file modification time - Retain indefinitely

The “based on file modification time” means that even if there’s a 10 year old file on the server, it will be backed up and retained.

• Delete item retention - Retain for 2 years 0 months 0 days

After a file is deleted, it will be retained within the synthetic full backups for two years so if a file is deleted on Mar 1, 2023 it will stay in the synthetic full backups until March 1, 2025.  Ongoing synthetic full backups after that date will not contain the deleted file. 

This means that the Yearly full backup on January 1 2025 will still contain the deleted file and if the storage policy has 3 year retention on yearly full backups, the deleted file could still be recovered until the Jan 1, 2025 backup ages out on Jan 1, 2028.

Recognizing that the dates on the file delete and the Yearly backup don’t line up, we get:  A file deleted Mar 1, 2023 could still be recovered until the December 2027.   

Does this sound correct?

Not one I am 100% confident in answering for you. I am not sure if the objects (files) would age out of the index before the job ages out or not. If it does then you would not see the deleted items after 2 years has passed even if the job is retained for longer.

If you need to get this confirmed 100% and our documentation is not giving you the answer either see if one of the team can confirm here or log a ticket.

@Graham Swift, I think I see at least part of my confusion.  I don’t understand the difference between a file being in an INDEX versus being in a JOB.

I think I see the benefit of retaining deleted files for 2 years.  Imagine you delete a file on October 12 of last year (2022).  The only backup that's available to restore is from the full backup on Saturday September 24th - 2.5 weeks before the files was deleted.  Using the Deleted Files option though, The last file that was backed up prior to deletion should be available to restore.  

I have a ticket open with CommVault support on this (230303-665) and during the investigation, I’ve found:

• Minimum retention based on file modification time is “Retain objects indefinitely”
• Deleted item retention is “2 year”

This explains why the files deleted a few weeks ago haven’t led to a reduced size for the synthetic full backups.  HOWEVER, investigation has found files deleted more than 2 years ago are still available to be restored.  When I asked the support analyst about this, he wrote:

• It is because the Retain by Modification Time is set higher, to infinite. It would follow highest retention setting and with that in place its not saying if the file was stubbed or deleted merely that based on Modification Time to retain forever.

This suggests to me that all files, even files that have been deleted, will be retained forever.  Is that correct?  That seems crazy.

Ken

Just to follow up on this: I changed the “Minimum retention based on file modification time” from “Retain objects indefinitely” to “Retain objects for 3 years, 0 months, 0 days”.  The size of the next Synthetic full backup was reduced by about two-thirds, going from 9.79TB to 3.35TB.  The “Deleted item retention” remains at 2 years so the recent cleanup of 0.7TB worth of files hasn’t been reflected in the 3.35TB.