What If I Change Retention? — The Simulation Every Admin Needs
Your pool is at 85%. You could add storage. You could recycle volumes. Or you could change retention from 30 days to 14 days and free up half the pool.
But what actually happens? Which volumes get affected? How much space is freed? Do you lose coverage for that compliance requirement nobody told you about?
Today, you change retention and hope for the best. There’s no preview. No simulation. No undo.
The retention dilemma
Retention settings are the most powerful lever in backup storage management — and the most dangerous. Change too aggressively and you lose recovery points. Change too conservatively and you run out of space.
The problem isn’t the concept. It’s that you can’t preview the impact:
- How many volumes would be pruned?
- How much storage would be freed?
- Which clients lose coverage below X days?
- What’s the new “full” date with this retention?
What-if simulation
Imagine clicking “simulate” before changing retention. A view that shows:
- Current state vs. projected state
- Volumes affected, storage freed
- Recovery point impact per client
- Side-by-side comparison of retention scenarios
No guesswork. No surprises. Change with confidence.
Onesimus Enterprise — the long-term vision
Retention analysis with what-if simulation is an Enterprise feature on the Onesimus roadmap. It requires deep catalog analysis and cross-referencing volume, job, and pool data — the kind of intelligence that justifies a dedicated product tier.
We’re not building it yet. The Community edition comes first — a modern management interface for jobs, clients, and schedules. Pro will add storage visibility and consumption analysis.
This is question 4 of 5. The hardest one. And the one that separates “managing backups” from “managing backup infrastructure.”