So, I previously had put a folder exclusion in a specific definition file. I no longer needed that folder exclusion, so I removed it from the definition. Now, during a regularly scheduled incremental backup last night, it did a full backup instead, and said it found nothing to append to! The previous backups are still in the destination folder, but not recognized by the backup process as part of its backups. I'm mainly concerned that those older backups will just stay in the directory forever, and never get cleaned up by the regular cleanup process (other than purging, which is a desperate last ditch effort). Will I have to manually delete those older backups myself as they get older and less relevant?

The reason Reflect decided to make a new Full may have been related to the Backup Set Matching option used by your definition file, which you can see under its Advanced Options.But you can address the cleanup concern by changing your retention policy setting to be applied to all backups in the destination folder, rather than the default “All matching backups”. That dropdown choice is in the Schedule area of the definition file configuration wizard, directly between the schedule section and the retention policy section. Just make sure that your destination folder contains ONLY backups created by this specific job, rather than completely unrelated backups created by other jobs.

And if you haven’t already, make sure that your exclusion change is working as you expect by checking the contents of your new backup. Sometimes people don’t find out that their backup wasn’t running as expected/assumed until it’s too late to do anything about it.

+x

 

jphughan - 15 May 2020 3:17 PM

The reason Reflect decided to make a new Full may have been related to the Backup Set Matching option used by your definition file, which you can see under its Advanced Options.But you can address the cleanup concern by changing your retention policy setting to match on all backups in the destination folder, rather than the default “All matching backups”. That dropdown choice is in the Schedule area of the definition file configuration wizard, directly between the schedule section and the retention policy section. Just make sure that your destination folder contains ONLY backups created by this specific job, rather than completely unrelated backups created by other jobs.And if you haven’t already, make sure that your exclusion change is working as you expect by checking the contents of your new backup. Sometimes people don’t find out that their backup wasn’t running as expected/assumed until it’s too late to do anything about it.

Thanks, good information that I was not aware of before.