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Question

Full backup or synthetic for streaming on agent-based backups?

  • 8 December 2022
  • 8 replies
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Hi guys,

 

What is better: Full backup or synthetic full for streaming on agent-based backups for file systems?

 

I get the point of synthetic full being better in terms that we are not using client machine’s resources, but are there any disadvantages of it?

Would the normal full be saver..? If so - why?

8 replies

Scott Moseman
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If you’re writing to a dedupe appliance, you probably want regular Fulls.
If you don’t have HW to support a DDB, you probably want regular Fulls.

Thanks,
Scott
 

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Hi @Scott Moseman 

 

our media agents are physical ones with SSD disks to support deduplication database/engine.

 

can you explain a bit more why the regular full would be more beneficial than synth full in this case? Or wouldn’t it?

Scott Moseman
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our media agents are physical ones with SSD disks to support deduplication database/engine.

can you explain a bit more why the regular full would be more beneficial than synth full in this case? 


My comment was to use a regular Full if your HW does NOT support a DDB.

If you have SSDs for hosting the DDB, using Synth Fulls is the better choice.

Thanks,
Scott
 

Commvault Enterprise Success
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@Scott Moseman is there a technical explanation why synthethic full is better for HW which is capable of hosting DDB?

Scott Moseman
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@Scott Moseman is there a technical explanation why synthethic full is better for HW which is capable of hosting DDB?


Synth Fulls are good for the reason you mentioned, they don’t impact Client resources.  For large data environments, less impact on the Network is also helpful.


Thanks,
Scott
 

Commvault Enterprise Success
Zubair Ahmed Sharief
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I would recommend Synthethic Full for following scenarios

  1. Auto Synthethic full (automatic synthetic schedule) - Synthetic full would trigger even if they were missed by the Ops team after the next incremental schedule.
  2. Forever Incremental strategy - Client never run a full backup unless it is the first instance of backup or reconfiguring to new storage or due to sealing the DDB
  3. Best suited for agent file system backups

Proper Scaling and Capacity planning is needed to ensure the Synthetic run without any issues.

“Never settle for anything less than your best.” — Brian Tracy
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Is an “Auto Synthethic full” different from a “Synth Full”?

usually I have a schedule policy, and within that a “synth Full” scheduled task to run 1 day ( say Sat), and then a “incremental” scheduled task to run all other days. For these, if the “incremental” on Friday runs an abnormally long time, the “synth Full” is skipped, and not picked up on the next run.  It sounds like an “Auto Synthethic full (automatic synthetic schedule)” does not have this issue?

Zubair Ahmed Sharief
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Hello @tigger2 

Please look for the below URL for details on auto synthetic full

How does Automatic Synthetic Full Backup Schedule works? | Community (commvault.com)

 

“Never settle for anything less than your best.” — Brian Tracy

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