A policy for synthetic backups must contain one of the following types of schedules:
At least one traditional, full backup must be run successfully to create a full image. The synthetic backup job fails if there is not at least one previous full image.
Schedule(s) for incremental backups.
Incremental backups are necessary to capture the changes in the file system since the last full or incremental backup. The synthetic backup job receives a status code of 1 for a policy that contains full or incremental synthetic backup schedules, but no incremental backup schedules.
The synthetic backup synthesizes all of the incremental backups to create a new full or cumulative backup image. Therefore, the synthetic backup is only as current as the last incremental backup.