What is the GFS backup pattern?

GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son) is a backup retention strategy that combines daily incremental backups, weekly full backups, monthly and annual full backups to optimize storage while ensuring a complete recovery history.

Why does immutability increase storage requirements?

In simple backup with daily retention, immutability prevents Veeam from deleting the previous chain when creating a new one, so two chains temporarily coexist: storage is multiplied by ×2.0. In GFS mode, synthetic fulls are independent of each other and overhead is reduced to just ×1.2.

What is the offsite storage price?

The base storage price for our Veeam Offsite service is €16/TB/month with a minimum of 1 TB. The price estimated by this calculator does not include VAT or the Anyworkload license.

What is the daily change rate?

The daily change rate is the percentage of data that is modified each day. For typical office environments it is 2-5%, for database servers it can reach 15-20%. It is used to calculate the size of incremental backups.

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Backup Calculator

Estimate the storage required for your backup infrastructure with support for GFS patterns, mandatory immutability and real change rate. Instant result in TB and €/month.

GFS

Grandfather·Father·Son·Annual

×2/×1.2

Simple / GFS Immutability

€16

per TB/month

calculate Quick setup

circle Daily incrementals — configurable change rate

circle Weekly fulls — complete weekly backup

circle Monthly fulls — monthly retention

circle Annual fulls — long-term archive

Go to calculator ↓

Backup Storage Calculator

Configure your backup scenario and get a real-time storage and cost estimate.

storage Data to protect

trending_up Daily change rate

Office: 2-5% · DB: 10-20%

compress Veeam compression ratio 50%

0% · images / ZIP / video 80% · databases / text

GFS Pattern (Grandfather-Father-Son) Recommended

Enable tiered retention configuration: daily, weekly, monthly and annual levels.

Full rotation

Retention

days

Mandatory immutability (always active)

Simple backup: ×2.0 (overlapping chains on rotation). GFS: ×1.2 (independent synthetic fulls).

End-to-end encryption

AES-256 included at no extra cost. Does not affect storage calculation.

Estimated storage

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Estimated price

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* Approximate figures. VAT not included. Storage price: €16/TB/month (min. 1 TB). Does not include Anyworkload license (€8.50/unit/month).

science Want to know your real metrics?

The actual change rate varies by environment. With a free 15-day POC we measure your infrastructure and get exact data for an accurate quote.

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IT company? Special pricing available through our Partner Programme.

bar_chart Storage consumption over time

Cumulative backup copies based on selected configuration

How does the calculation work?

Key concepts to understand the calculator results.

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GFS Pattern

The Grandfather-Father-Son strategy combines multiple retention levels to balance recovery granularity and storage space.

Daily (Son): Incrementals of change rate % over total

Weekly (Father): One full backup per week

Monthly (Grandfather): One full backup per month

Annual (Great-grandfather): One full backup per year

lock

Immutability (WORM)

Immutable repositories protect against ransomware: once written, data cannot be modified or deleted until the retention period expires.

info Immutability factor applied

In simple backup, immutability locks the previous full during rotation: 1 extra storage cycle is added (weekly rotation = +7 days, monthly = +30 days). In GFS, synthetic fulls are independent, reducing overhead to just ×1.2.

receipt

Example: 1 TB company

GFS 7D/4W/12M/1A · 5% change · Immutability ×1.2

Daily: 7 × 1,024GB × 5%358 GB

Weekly: 4 × 1,024GB4,096 GB

Monthly: 12 × 1,024GB12,288 GB

Annual: 1 × 1,024GB1,024 GB

Subtotal × 1.220.82 TB

Estimated price€333/month

Recommended retention by industry

Each sector has different regulatory and operational requirements. Apply the recommended GFS configuration directly to the calculator.

account_balance

Finance & Insurance

PCI-DSS · DORA · EBA

GFS 7D / 8W / 12M / 7Y

✓ Minimum 7-year retention (DORA)
✓ Weekly snapshots for quarterly audit
✓ Mandatory immutability

health_and_safety

Healthcare & Pharma

GDPR · HIPAA · NIS2

GFS 7D / 4W / 12M / 10Y

✓ Clinical records: 10 years minimum
✓ Full audit trail for health inspections
✓ Data sovereignty in Spain

domain

Public Sector

ENS Alto · GDPR · NIS2

GFS 7D / 8W / 24M / 10Y

✓ ENS Alto requires immutable repository
✓ Data centre on Spanish soil
✓ Extended retention for public audits

shopping_cart

E-commerce & Retail

PCI-DSS · GDPR · Tax Law

GFS 7D / 4W / 6M / 5Y

✓ Transaction records: 5 years
✓ Monthly snapshots for tax reconciliation
✓ High change rate (orders DB)

rocket_launch

SaaS & Startups

GDPR · SOC2 · ISO 27001

GFS 7D / 4W / 3M / 1Y

✓ Recommended minimum for SaaS
✓ Good cost-to-retention balance
✓ Extend if holding EU customer data

store

General SME

GDPR · Basic protection