A synthetic full backup is a full backup created by the backup software from an existing full backup and its subsequent incrementals, without reading the source data from production systems again. The result is a new full backup image that looks identical to a traditional full backup taken directly from source.

How It Works

After a regular full backup is taken and incremental backups run daily, the backup software synthesizes a new full backup by merging the original full with each incremental in order. This synthetic full backup then serves as the new baseline, and the incrementals that fed into it can be discarded.

Benefits

Production systems are not touched during synthetic full creation, eliminating the performance impact that traditional full backup jobs impose. Network bandwidth is preserved because no data travels from source to backup target during synthesis. This makes synthetic full backup ideal for large environments where weekly full backups would saturate the network or degrade application performance.

When to Use Synthetic Full Backup

Synthetic full backup works best in environments where production backup windows are tight, network bandwidth is constrained, or storage targets support efficient merge operations. It is widely supported by Veeam, Commvault, and Veritas NetBackup.

For implementation guidance on synthetic full backup including configuration in Veeam and storage target requirements, StoneFly’s technical resources walk through each setup scenario.