Forcing Full Backup Out of Schedule

Situation

In order to save bandwidth and computing resources, each backup plan type supports block-level scheduling. It allows uploading only the changed increments of the source data, as opposed to performing a full dataset reupload on each run of the plan.

Scheduled full backup runs are still necessary (for example, on a weekly or monthly basis) to keep the backup chain stable and data retention policy active.

However, in certain situations it is a good practice to force a full backup outside of its regular schedule. Main reasons to do so are troubleshooting backup chain inconsistencies and retention policy issues, as well as creating additional full restore points.

Solution

Please refer to the section below that corresponds to the type of backup plan you need to force a full backup for:

• Image-based backup
• VMWare/Hyper-V backup
• Exchange backup
• Microsoft SQL backup
• File-level backup

Note that these instruction only apply to Backup Agent versions 6.* and earlier. For versions 7.* and later, refer to the end of the article.

Image-based Backup

Switch to the Backup Plans tab, expand the required plan, then click Force Full Backup

VMWare/Hyper-V Backup

Switch to the Backup Plans tab, expand the required plan, then click Force Full Backup

Exchange Backup

Switch to the Backup Plans tab, expand the required plan, then click Force Full Backup

Microsoft SQL Backup

Switch to the Backup Plans tab, expand the required plan, then click Force Full Backup

File-level Backup

File-level backup plans do not have an option to force a full backup of the source dataset. However, instead it is possible to schedule incremental backups by opening the Backup Plan Wizard and editing the Schedule Options:

Instead of uploading just the changed portions of the files modified since the last backup execution, incremental backup will upload such files in full. However, unmodified files that are already in a backup storage will not be reuploaded.

As with full backups in other plan types, it is strongly recommended to have incremental backups scheduled on a regular basis (for example, weekly or monthly) for the file-level backup plans.

Note that file-level incremental backup can also be forced out of schedule, in a similar way to other backup types:

Backup Agent 7.0 and Later

Force Full Backup button was moved to the drop-down menu for all types of plans that support a full backup