Backup format

This option defines the format of the backups created by the backup plan. You can choose between the new format (Version 12) designed for faster backup and recovery, and the legacy format (Version 11) preserved for backward compatibility and special cases. After the backup plan is applied, this option cannot be modified.

This option is not effective for mailbox backups. Mailbox backups always have Version 12 format.

The preset is: Automatic selection.

You can select one of the following:

• Automatic selection

  Version 12 will be used unless the backup plan appends backups to the ones created by earlier product versions.

• Version 12

  A new format recommended in most cases for fast backup and recovery. Each backup chain (a full or differential backup, and all incremental backups that depend on it) is saved to a single .tibx file.

  With this format, the retention rule By total size of backups is not effective.

• Version 11

  A legacy format to be used in a new backup plan that appends backups to the ones created by earlier product versions.

  Also, use this format (with any backup scheme except for Always incremental (single-file)) if you want full, incremental, and differential backups to be separate files.

  This format is automatically selected if the backup destination (or a replication destination) is a managed location with enabled deduplication. If you change the format to Version 12, the backups will fail.

  You cannot back up Database Availability Groups (DAG) by using archive format Version 11. Backing up of DAG is supported only in archive format Version 12.

Backup format and backup files

For backup locations that can be browsed with a file manager (such as local or network folders), the backup format determines the number of files and their extension. You can define the file names by using the backup file name option. The following table lists the files that can be created per machine or mailbox.

	Always incremental (single-file)	Other backup schemes
Version 11 backup format	One .tib file and one .xml metadata file	Multiple .tib files and one .xml metadata file (traditional format)
Version 12 backup format	One .tibx file per backup chain (a full or differential backup, and all incremental backups that depend on it)

Changing the backup format to version 12 (.tibx)

If you change the backup format from version 11 (.tib format) to version 12 (.tibx format):

• The next backup will be full.
• In backup locations that can be browsed with a file manager (such as local or network folders), a new .tibx file will be created. The new file will have the name of the original file, appended with the _v12A suffix.
• Retention rules and replication will be applied only to the new backups.
• The old backups will not be deleted and will remain available on the Backup storage tab. You can delete them manually.
• The old cloud backups will not consume the Cloud storage quota.
• The old local backups will consume the Local backup quota until you delete them manually.

In-archive deduplication

The backup format of version 12 supports in-archive deduplication that brings the following advantages:

• Reduced backup size in tens of times, with built-in block-level deduplication for any type of data
• Efficient handling of hard links ensures that there are no storage duplicates
• Hash-based chunking