A policy for synthetic backups must contain one of the following types of schedules:

• At least one traditional, full backup must be run successfully to create a full image. The synthetic backup job fails if there is not at least one previous full image.

• Schedule(s) for incremental backups.

  Incremental backups are necessary to capture the changes in the file system since the last full or incremental backup. The synthetic backup job receives a status code of 1 for a policy that contains full or incremental synthetic backup schedules, but no incremental backup schedules.

  The synthetic backup synthesizes all of the incremental backups to create a new full or cumulative backup image. Therefore, the synthetic backup is only as current as the last incremental backup.

• One full and one cumulative backup schedule with the Synthetic Backup option selected.