Removable media for backup targets in Veeam Backup and Replication aren't officially supported yet. It's because to be able to rotate several medias as a destination target for backup and (or) backup copy jobs isn't just that simple.
Not simple because of the format of the backups (full, then incrementals or reverse incrementals), so there is a backup chain to maintain and the job must check and see if the full backup is present on the removable media before triggering new incremental backup. If not a new full VBK file is created.
As for now, Veeam provided few registry keys that needed to be created or (and) some scripting is required to make such a solution to work. But at Veeam the guys never sleeps.
Quote:
This code adds rotated drives support for all backup modes of primary backup jobs, as well as for Backup Copy jobs. It also adds optional backup repository auto cleanup functionality. This code must be installed on B&R 7.0 R2.
They just announced that in the upcoming patch for Veeam Backup and Replication v7 R2 they'll avoid you any scripting. The beta code is already available from this link on Veeam's forum so you can try it out.
In which scenarios this solution using removable USB drives as a backup targets is usable?
I had several clients that had been looking into this functionality few years ago already. There might be two different type of clients that are looking into this:
- Very Small Clients without remote site – the first type of client is very small business without remote site. Small clients not always has possibility (and money) to maintain second (DR) site.
- Clients with legal or security constraints – the second type of client it might be a client with very high security requirements (physical) where the backups has to be handled manually and stored in very secure, isolated location.
In any case, to be able to take backups Off site without having remote site, the USB drive is a good solution and I'm looking into it. Additionally the new tape support in version 7 of Veeam adds another layer of flexibility into this excellent product. Tape support is no longer missing and can be used to rotate media and provide off site storage and archiving.
Source: Veeam
