Help With Understanding Windows Server 2019 Backups

Question

Hi,

We have installed a Windows 2019 STD Server.

We are using 5 x USB HDD to backup (we have labelled them Mon to Fri)

I presumed that the first backup to each USB drive would be a full one and then subsequent ones would be incremental.

We have now been running backups for 3 weeks and all drives have now had at least 1 full backup done to them but we are getting odd results in that some nights it seems to do a full backup again (takes 4 hours) where as some nights it does an incremental (takes 10 mins).

Are we missing something.

Thanks in advance

Stephen

Answer 1

Hi,

Windows Server Backup automatically creates a full backup when both of the following conditions are true:

• 14 incremental backups have occurred since the last full backup.
• More than 14 days have passed since the last full backup.

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Best regards,
Leon

Answer 2

Hi,

--We have now been running backups for 3 weeks and all drives have now had at least 1 full backup done to them but we are getting odd results in that some nights it seems to do a full backup again (takes 4 hours) where as some nights it does an incremental (takes 10 mins).

It seems like the WSB's automatic management of full and incremental backup feature since Server 2008 R2, you may learn the detailed information below:

Automatic management of full and incremental backups. You no longer need to manage full and incremental backups. Instead, Windows Server Backup will, by default, create an incremental backup that behaves like a full backup. You can recover any item from a single backup, but the backup will only occupy space needed for an incremental backup. In addition, Windows Server Backup does not require user intervention to periodically delete older backups to free up disk space for newer backups—older backups are deleted automatically.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2008-R2-and-2008/cc772523(v=ws.11)#new-functionality

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Thanks for your time!
Best Regards,
Anne

Answer 3

Hi,

I would like to check if the above reply could be of help? If yes, please help accept it as an answer, so that others meet a similar issue can find useful information quickly. If you have any other concerns or questions, please feel free to feedback.

Besides, I would like to check if you could receive the Email notification when we reply your post? We appreciate your feedback.

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If the reply could be of help, please help to accept it as an answer, thanks for your cooperation!
Thanks for your time!
Best Regards,
Anne

Answer 4

I read that there can only be one full bare metal backup at any time on a media. I will be using a dedicated hard drive on my Server 2019 computer. I intend to create a full backup of a base install before moving on to active directory install just in case I stuff something up and have a fall back. Once AD is set up and working I want to do a full bare metal backup of this state. I will then have two or more full backups on this HDD. The site I was reading said that any full backup done will overwrite any previous one done. Is this the case?

Answer 5

for 2019 backup causing real problems for me. Or should I say recovery. For years no trouble, now issues. Restoring is an issue as soon as you start, system event logs warning talk about some drive you cant find is write protected. and if you are testing restore on different 2019 hardware VM restore just fails and VM wont start. You have to manually clean up folder path mess and manually import them. and the logs full of waning by now- delayed write, failed to flush, write protect. something bad has Been done to server 2019 backup, new feature perhaps.