The synthetic backup feature eliminates the need to perform recurring full backups for supported remote resources. A policy created for the synthetic backup feature enables the synthetic backup to be assembled from a full backup (called a baseline) and subsequent incremental backups that are also contained in the policy.

The resulting synthetic backup then becomes the new baseline, so only incremental backups are required until the next synthetic backup is created. The synthetic backup is as current as the last incremental backup that it contains.

The baseline backup runs from the synthetic backup policy.

Incremental backups run from the synthetic backup policy.

The synthetic backup runs from the policy and is assembled from the baseline and incremental backups.

Synthetic backup can only be created within a policy. You can use the Policy Wizard to create a policy that will contain the necessary job templates for the synthetic backup feature, or you can copy the example policy for synthetic backup and then modify it to suit your specific needs, or you can manually create a policy, and then add the necessary job templates.

For all of the associated backup templates in a policy, you can also use a Duplicate Backup Set template to create a multi-stage backup strategy for backing up data to disk and then copying it to tape.