Synthetic Full Backup - User Guide for VMware vSphere
helpcenter.veeam.com › synthetic_full_backupApr 27, 2021 · Synthetic full backup produces a VBK file that contains data of the whole VM. The difference between active and synthetic full backup lies in the way how VM data is retrieved: When you perform active full backup, Veeam Backup & Replication retrieves VM data from the source datastore where the VM resides, compresses and deduplicates it and writes it to the VBK file in the backup repository.