What is immutable backup?
Immutable backup adds a second, write-once copy of your backup data that cannot be changed or deleted by anyone — including you — until a retention period you choose has passed. It's powered by a cloud storage feature called S3 Object Lock, and it's designed to protect your backups from ransomware, accidental deletion, and malicious tampering, even if an attacker gains full access to your account credentials.
When you turn it on, WholesaleBackup automatically creates a separate, locked storage bucket and writes periodic snapshots into it using your existing storage credentials — there's no second account or extra login to manage.
Which storage providers support it?
Immutable backup requires a storage provider that supports S3 Object Lock. It's available as an option on the build form for:
- Amazon S3
- Wasabi
- Backblaze B2
- iDrive e2
It is not available for Google Cloud Storage, WholesaleBackup (WSBU) server backends, or Synology C2 backends, since none of those support Object Lock. If your brand is built on one of these, you won't see the immutable option on your build form.
Enabling immutable backup on a new brand
- Start a new build using one of the supported providers listed above (Amazon S3, Wasabi, Backblaze B2, or iDrive e2), and fill out your primary storage credentials as you normally would.
- Scroll to the Immutable (S3 Object Lock) backup section of the build form and check Enable immutable backup.
- Set your Immutable snapshot interval — how often a locked snapshot is written. The default is 7 days.
- Set your Object Lock retention — how long each snapshot stays locked once written. The default is 365 days.
- Choose an Object Lock mode:
- Governance (recommended) — snapshots are locked, but an account holder with special override permissions can remove a lock if genuinely necessary.
- Compliance — snapshots cannot be deleted or have their retention shortened by anyone, including you, until retention expires. This is irreversible and intended only for brands with a specific regulatory requirement — the build form will ask you to confirm before proceeding if you select it.
- Finish filling out the rest of the build form as usual and submit.
That's it — no separate sign-up or additional API keys are needed. Your immutable storage bucket is created automatically the first time the client runs a backup, using the same credentials as your primary storage.
What happens after you enable it
- On your first backup run, WholesaleBackup creates a dedicated, versioned bucket for immutable snapshots and locks it down according to the retention you selected.
- From then on, a locked snapshot is written on your chosen interval (every 7 days, by default).
- Immutable snapshots are kept separate from your regular backup lifecycle — they're not affected by normal sync, retention cleanup, or pruning, so they'll still be there even if something happens to your primary backups.
Enabling immutable backup on an existing brand
You can turn on immutable backup for a brand you've already built by opening that brand's build form again, checking Enable immutable backup, and resubmitting.
If you later decide to turn immutable backup off, keep in mind that any snapshots already written remain locked and protected until their individual retention periods expire — turning the setting off only stops new immutable snapshots from being created going forward.
A note on retention and cost
Because locked snapshots genuinely cannot be deleted early, longer retention periods (and Compliance mode in particular) mean you'll be storing — and paying for — that data for the full retention period, even if you'd normally have cleaned it up sooner. We recommend starting with the defaults (7-day interval, 365-day retention, Governance mode) unless you have a s