Im confused by the different Retention periods: File Retention, Job Retention, Volume Retention. Why are there so many?
Yes, this certainly can be confusing. The basic reason for so many is to allow flexibility. The File records take quite a lot of space in the catalog, so they are typically records you want to remove rather quickly. The Job records, take very little space, and they can be useful even without the File records to see what Jobs actually ran and when. One must understand that if the File records are removed from the catalog, you cannot use the restore command to restore an individual file since Bacula no longer knows where it is. However, as long as the Volume Retention period has not expired, the data will still be on the tape, and can be recovered from the tape. For example, I keep a 30 day retention period for my Files to keep my catalog from getting too big, but I keep my tapes for a minimum of one year, just in case.
