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29 Dell EMC SC Series: Veeam Backup & Replication Integration | 4061-SC-SG
6.4 Orphaned snapshots
As mentioned throughout this document, Veeam Backup & Replication creates SC Series snapshots with no
expiration. There are opportunities for snapshots to be created with no follow-up mechanism to expire them.
These are referred to as orphaned snapshots. There are a few examples of how snapshots can become
orphaned:
• A Veeam backup job is deleted, leaving behind all associated snapshots still within the job’s retention
policy.
• A manual storage snapshot is created within Veeam and no follow-up step is performed to expire the
snapshot when it is no longer needed.
The effective raw storage capacity lost due to an orphaned snapshot depends on the amount of data frozen in
the snapshot. Also, a deleted backup job likely orphans many snapshots (14 by default) for each volume it
provided data protection for, with each snapshot tying up raw storage.
The best practice is to eliminate orphaned snapshots, which could involve several approaches. Most of these
involve documenting operational policies and then following the policy with discipline. The following include
simple examples using the scenarios above.
• When a Veeam backup job is deleted, expire its associated snapshots since they fall outside of the
job’s retention policy. They could take days, weeks, or even months to complete, depending on the
backup job interval.
• Implement a weekly PowerShell script that enumerates SC Series volumes and returns volumes with
snapshots that have no expiration. Question all results.