Really frustrated with the backup image scheduling. It seems to be more complicated than other programs.
I just want two weeks of image backups with two full backups. What would be the schedule for this?
I want it to finish the first week then create a new chain with a new full backup. On the 15th day I want it to delete the first chain backup and start day 8-14 again.
At the very least I should always have 1 full backup and 6 incrementals plus an additional 1 full backup.
You cannot do what you're proposing exactly as you want it - but you can get very close. If you run full backups once a week and block-level incremental backups on other days of the week, then you have a 7 day schedule (1 Full + 6 Incremental backups). You can keep backups as you want for 14 days, but you cannot delete that first 7 days until the 21 day mark when the next backup set is complete. That's because you want 14 days of backups and we cannot delete the first backup set and leave 14 days on disk for restores until the next backup set is complete. If you only want to keep 8 days of backups, then once the full in the 3rd backup set completes, we can remove the entire first set. But at that point, unless the system is very active and the block-level incremental backups are very large, you might as well keep them using a 14 day retention.
That's too bad. I'm beyond frustrated at this point. I'm going to start looking at other providers who can do this. It's ridiculous how complex it is to do basic workstation image backups on a two week basis. I've used multiple backup programs and never encountered such a complex mess in my life. Very disappointing.
If you set the retention to 7 days, then the first backup set will delete at the end of the second set / week, leaving you with 7 days. There is no way thought to keep the first full as that would be a week earlier and be missing the 6 incremental backups that followed it.
In this scenario with 7 day retention:
Day 1: Full
Day 2 - 7: Incremental
Day 8: Full
Day 9-14: Incremental
Day 1 - 7: Deleted after Day 14 backup
Then the process repeats. On the next day a new Full will run, followed by 6 incrementals. In this case, you would only have 1 day where you only have a single full as a second one will be created on the next chain.
Can you go into a little more detail about your use case so I understand it better?