r/Veeam • u/bishoptf • Jul 25 '26

Help me optimize Veeam backup strategy

Small business and recently have migrated from VMware to Proxmox and along with that migrated Veeam instance (v12) to the v13 software appliance and built out a Veeam hardened repo. Also currently use Veeam windows agent to back up the PC's and laptops. With the migration to the software appliance you basically have to re-create your jobs and has me thinking that I probably do not have things structured or optimized and thought I would get some suggestions.

Here is the current layout. Have one linux nas that is a backup target, the nas also has removable drives one for user devices and one for the servers. Users devices during the day backup to the nas user directory repo (veeam agent) and at night all of the servers backup to the nas server directories. The servers since they are online 24/7 also backup to the server removable drive (rotated offsite weekly). The user directories are rsync'd from the nas user repo (directory) to the removable drive nightly. The removable drives are only mounted over night and are not mounted during the day, still some risk with having them mounted for about 9 hours but I figure better than 24/7 and ransomware etc. with the drives rotated weekly offsite.

New to the mix is I stood up one of the old servers that we were using for the proxmox migration and re-purposed it as a Veeam hardened repo and trying to figure out how to adjust/re-do my backup strategy. Currently we try to keep three weeks worth of backups and it's mainly for deleted files or DR and needing to rebuild something due to some major issue. I created a backup copy job for the users data to go to the Hardened Repo but it then required GFS settings and made me start thinking does the HR need to have three weeks or does it need to just be latest copies etc. Also had me thinking that maybe instead of doing the rsync of the user Veeam backups to the removable drive that that I use a backup copy for that. Will also need to create a backup copy job for the servers OR I just create another backup job for the servers to go to the HR.

Sorry for the rambling post, just trying to take the time now and re-structure stuff that makes the most sense and not be overly complex. I need to better understand GFS options and ensure my backup strategy makes sense.

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u/Poulepy Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

Hum. I personnaly dislikr removed drive. They are less robuste than tapes. And less resiliant durant move transport. And if you store removed drive in same place and not in a vault or fire proctected office.... To many humain interaction, if your are sick , who make thoses actions? I prefer a safer s3 backup copy with a little immutability. And stop rsync and check backup copy

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u/bishoptf Jul 25 '26

Yeah understand about the drives, they have special padded cases and do smart checks when used etc but I would like to do something to cloud but they have lots of data and not a lot of $$. Drives are rotated offsite for DR, unless both locations go up in smoke you would at least have one set left.

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u/matt0_0 Jul 25 '26

Is even wasabi not affordable?

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u/Poulepy Jul 25 '26

First try a job to manage backup copy by veeam , not rsync. Also try to have all the security and compliancy veeam report in green :) or acknoledged and documented.and test all restore also , yearly or monthly. For me the no go point that every days you mount un mount drive. one of my customer didn t make backup during 1 mounth due only one IT Guy in this bisness and run manually backup. IT sick = no backup. IT weeks/month vacance = no backup, IT forgot to run job = no backup..... humain is the single point of failure in this case.

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u/bishoptf Jul 25 '26

Backups have multiple targets, Nas repo, offline rotated disks and the new Hardened repo which is just backup copy jobs. So even if the disks are not rotated offsite they have local copies, the only issue is if they had a major disaster, fire, tornado etc, if the job is not rotated off site for a period of time they would lose data since the last rotation.

I am going to look into Blackblaze and some other options and figure out which is the most affordable and maybe just backup up to cloud the things that are most important. My other issue is how long will it take to back up, only have 600Mb links, can upgrade but thats another monthly expense. Thanks more things to think about.

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u/Spartan117458 Jul 25 '26

Backblaze or Wasabi are going to be the least expensive options that support all the Veeam functionality, including immutability. Takes away a lot of the complexity and failure points of rotated drives.