Before you create a synthetic backup, review the following information:

• Synthetic backup and the associated templates can only be created in policies.

• In a policy that contains a synthetic backup, if an encryption key is used, all of the associated templates must use the same encryption key. The encryption key should not be changed after the policy has been created. The encryption key that is selected in the associated templates is automatically applied to the synthetic backup template.

• In a policy that contains a synthetic backup, backup templates that create incremental backup jobs must have backup-to-disk folders as destination devices. Before you can save a policy that contains the synthetic backup templates, you must have a backup-to-disk folder that you can select as the destination device for the required incremental backup jobs.

• To display the example policy for synthetic backup, a backup-to-disk folder must already exist or must be created, and the Advanced Disk-based Backup option must be licensed.

  See Creating a synthetic backup by copying the example policy.

• The option Collect additional information for synthetic backup and for true image restore must be selected for backup templates for incremental and full backup jobs created for synthetic backup. This option is on the General page of the Backup Job Template properties.

  See Creating a synthetic backup by adding templates to a policy.

  This option also enables true image restore for backup sets.

  See About true image restore.

• If the baseline backup job was written to tape, and if you also want to write the synthetic backup job to tape, two tape drives are required: one to mount the source job on (the baseline backup) and one to mount the destination job on (the synthetic backup job).

Following are limitations when running synthetic backup:

• Only file system resources are supported for synthetic backup.

  See What you can back up with synthetic backup.

• If the Central Admin Server Option is installed, the synthetic backup job template and any associated full and incremental job templates must be run on destination devices that can all be accessed by the media server that runs the synthetic backup job.

  See Requirements for duplicate backup data and synthetic backup jobs in CASO.

• The option Checkpoint Restart is not supported when the option Collect additional information for synthetic backup and for true image restore is selected.

  See Using checkpoint restart on Microsoft Cluster Server failover.

  See Collecting additional information for synthetic backup and true image restore.

  See Creating a synthetic backup by copying the example policy.

  See Creating a synthetic backup by adding templates to a policy.