Retention Policies

Retention policies control how many backup copies JetBackup keeps before automatically deleting the oldest ones. Setting retention correctly balances restore coverage with storage costs.

Fixed retention

Keep exactly N copies of each backup. When a new backup completes and you are over the limit, the oldest backup is deleted.

Example: Daily backup with retention of 7 → you always have exactly 7 restore points, one per day going back one week.

Time-based retention

Keep backups newer than N days. Older backups are automatically deleted.

Example: Time-based retention of 30 days → restore points available for the past month. Useful for compliance scenarios with defined data retention requirements.

Setting retention on a backup job

When creating or editing a backup job:

1. JetBackup → Backup Jobs → Edit (or create new)
2. Scroll to the Retention section
3. Select Fixed or Time-based
4. Set the value
5. Save

Recommended retention settings

Small server (1–10 accounts)

Job	Frequency	Retention	Storage estimate
Daily	Every day	14 copies	~2–4 GB per account
Weekly	Every Sunday	8 copies
Monthly	1st of month	6 copies

Medium server (10–50 accounts)

Job	Frequency	Retention	Notes
Daily	Every day	7 copies	Balances coverage vs storage
Weekly	Every Sunday	4 copies
Monthly	1st of month	3 copies

Large server (50+ accounts)

Job	Frequency	Retention	Notes
Daily	Every day	3 copies	Storage fills quickly at scale
Weekly	Every Sunday	4 copies
Monthly	1st of month	2 copies

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More frequent backups need lower retention

If you run hourly backups, keeping 24 copies only gives you one day of coverage — but uses 3x the storage of a daily backup with 7-copy retention. Increase retention or reduce frequency based on your actual restore needs.

How retention interacts with storage

Storage used = (average account size) × (number of accounts) × (total backup copies across all jobs)

For example: 10 accounts × 2 GB average × (7 daily + 4 weekly + 3 monthly = 14 copies) = ~280 GB.

JetBackup uses incremental backups where possible, which significantly reduces storage — only changed files are stored after the first full backup.

Viewing what will be deleted

Before changing retention, review what JetBackup currently has under Destinations → Usage → Browse. This shows all stored backups with their size and date, so you can see exactly what a retention change would remove.