Veeam Backup Storage Calculator
Estimate the storage capacity required for your Veeam backups based on your source data, change rate, and retention policy. This calculator provides a simplified estimate for a single backup chain (e.g., forever incremental).
The total amount of data you need to protect.
The average percentage of your source data that changes daily.
How many days of backup restore points you need to keep.
Estimated data reduction from Veeam's compression (e.g., 50% means data is halved).
Estimated data reduction from Veeam's deduplication (e.g., 20% means 20% less data).
Estimated Storage Requirements:
Enter your values and click "Calculate Storage" to see the results.
Understanding Veeam Backup Storage Requirements
Veeam Backup & Replication is a powerful solution for data protection and disaster recovery. A critical aspect of deploying Veeam effectively is accurately sizing your backup storage. Underestimating storage can lead to costly expansions, performance issues, or even failed backups, while overestimating can result in unnecessary expenditure.
Why is Storage Sizing Important for Veeam?
Proper storage sizing ensures:
- Adequate Capacity: You have enough space to store all your required restore points according to your retention policies.
- Optimal Performance: Sufficient storage prevents bottlenecks that can slow down backup and restore operations.
- Cost Efficiency: You invest in the right amount of storage, avoiding both overspending and unexpected additional costs.
- Reliability: Full storage repositories can cause backups to fail, compromising your data protection strategy.
How the Veeam Backup Storage Calculator Works
This calculator provides an estimate based on common Veeam backup scenarios, particularly focusing on a single backup chain (e.g., a "forever incremental" approach where a full backup is created once, and subsequent backups are incrementals). It considers the following key factors:
Input Parameters Explained:
- Source Data Size (TB): This is the total amount of raw data (e.g., virtual machines, file shares, databases) that you intend to protect with Veeam. It's the baseline for all calculations.
- Daily Change Rate (%): Data in your environment is rarely static. This percentage represents the average amount of your source data that changes on a daily basis. For example, a 5% daily change rate on 10 TB means 0.5 TB of data changes each day. This is crucial for incremental backup sizing.
- Retention Policy (Days): Your retention policy dictates how many days (or restore points) of backups you need to keep. A longer retention period naturally requires more storage.
- Expected Compression (%): Veeam applies compression to backup data, significantly reducing its size. This input allows you to estimate the percentage of data reduction you expect from compression. Typical values range from 30% to 70%, depending on the data type (e.g., databases compress less than file servers).
- Expected Deduplication (%): Beyond compression, Veeam also performs deduplication, identifying and storing unique data blocks only once. This further reduces storage consumption. The deduplication ratio depends heavily on the similarity of data across your protected systems. Common estimates range from 10% to 50% or even higher in highly virtualized environments with similar OS images.
Calculation Logic:
The calculator uses a simplified model to estimate storage:
- Effective Reduction Factor: This combines your expected compression and deduplication ratios to determine the overall data reduction. For example, 50% compression and 20% deduplication means your data will be reduced to
(1 - 0.50) * (1 - 0.20) = 0.5 * 0.8 = 0.4or 40% of its original size. - Initial Full Backup Size: This is your source data size multiplied by the effective reduction factor. This represents the size of your very first full backup.
- Daily Incremental Backup Size: This is calculated by taking your source data size, multiplying it by the daily change rate, and then applying the effective reduction factor. This gives you the estimated size of each subsequent daily incremental backup.
- Total Repository Storage Needed: The total storage is estimated by summing the initial full backup size and the cumulative size of all incremental backups over your retention period. For a 30-day retention, it would be one full backup plus 29 incremental backups.
Realistic Examples:
Example 1: Small Environment
- Source Data Size: 2 TB
- Daily Change Rate: 10%
- Retention Policy: 14 Days
- Expected Compression: 40%
- Expected Deduplication: 15%
- Calculation:
- Effective Reduction Factor: (1 – 0.40) * (1 – 0.15) = 0.6 * 0.85 = 0.51
- Initial Full Backup: 2 TB * 0.51 = 1.02 TB
- Daily Incremental Backup: 2 TB * 0.10 * 0.51 = 0.102 TB
- Total Storage: 1.02 TB + (0.102 TB * (14 – 1)) = 1.02 TB + (0.102 TB * 13) = 1.02 TB + 1.326 TB = 2.35 TB
Example 2: Medium Environment
- Source Data Size: 25 TB
- Daily Change Rate: 3%
- Retention Policy: 60 Days
- Expected Compression: 55%
- Expected Deduplication: 25%
- Calculation:
- Effective Reduction Factor: (1 – 0.55) * (1 – 0.25) = 0.45 * 0.75 = 0.3375
- Initial Full Backup: 25 TB * 0.3375 = 8.44 TB
- Daily Incremental Backup: 25 TB * 0.03 * 0.3375 = 0.253 TB
- Total Storage: 8.44 TB + (0.253 TB * (60 – 1)) = 8.44 TB + (0.253 TB * 59) = 8.44 TB + 14.927 TB = 23.37 TB
Important Considerations:
- Growth Rate: This calculator does not account for the natural growth of your source data over time. Always factor in future data growth when planning storage.
- GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) Retention: If you use GFS retention policies (weekly, monthly, yearly backups), your storage requirements will be higher than this simplified model. This calculator is best for a single, continuous backup chain.
- Backup Copy Jobs: If you copy backups to another location (e.g., for offsite storage or disaster recovery), you will need additional storage at the target location.
- Immutability/Hardened Repository: Features like immutability might require specific storage configurations or slightly different sizing considerations depending on the underlying storage.
- Block Cloning/ReFS/XFS: Modern file systems like ReFS (Windows) and XFS (Linux) with block cloning capabilities can significantly reduce the physical space consumed by synthetic full backups and backup copies. This calculator provides a general estimate; actual usage on such file systems might be lower.
- Actual vs. Estimated: Compression and deduplication ratios are estimates. Actual results can vary based on data type, backup job settings, and the efficiency of your storage hardware. It's always wise to add a buffer to your calculated storage needs.
Use this calculator as a starting point for your Veeam backup storage planning. For precise sizing, always consult Veeam's official documentation and consider using their more advanced sizing tools or engaging with a Veeam expert.