One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client
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We have a critical Windows VM that we need to take a backup of us (manually.) No scheduling needed. We can't use Veeam or anything similar that uses an image based system as VSS is not working due to the former IT company misconfiguring VMware ESXi. So we need a file-based backup tool. The backup medium is a USB disk. We have enough space to hold the backup, but need to write to a file or folder, not take over the entire drive.
Any recommendations on the best tool to use? Thanks
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@scottalanmiller said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
We have a critical Windows VM that we need to take a backup of us (manually.) No scheduling needed. We can't use Veeam or anything similar that uses an image based system as VSS is not working due to the former IT company misconfiguring VMware ESXi. So we need a file-based backup tool. The backup medium is a USB disk. We have enough space to hold the backup, but need to write to a file or folder, not take over the entire drive.
Any recommendations on the best tool to use? Thanks
Crashplan Pro? It will let you specify a local target.
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I've had great success with various editions of SyncBack. Currently using SyncBack Free at home and have used SyncBack Pro here with our file server, before we started using Veeam.
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Veeam agent has an option to do file level backups. But why wouldn't VSS work? I don't think it cares what's running under the OS or whether it's properly configured or not.
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@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
Veeam agent has an option to do file level backups. But why wouldn't VSS work? I don't think it cares what's running under the OS or whether it's properly configured or not.
I would assume, because the OS is screwed up and VSS is broke. I've seen it before.
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@JaredBusch said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
Veeam agent has an option to do file level backups. But why wouldn't VSS work? I don't think it cares what's running under the OS or whether it's properly configured or not.
I would assume, because the OS is screwed up and VSS is broke. I've seen it before.
In that case I'd just copy the data by hand, then wipe OS and start from scratch.
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@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
Veeam agent has an option to do file level backups. But why wouldn't VSS work? I don't think it cares what's running under the OS or whether it's properly configured or not.
Doesn't work. Their "file level" isn't file level, it's still an image, just with file based selections.
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@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@JaredBusch said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
Veeam agent has an option to do file level backups. But why wouldn't VSS work? I don't think it cares what's running under the OS or whether it's properly configured or not.
I would assume, because the OS is screwed up and VSS is broke. I've seen it before.
In that case I'd just copy the data by hand, then wipe OS and start from scratch.
Not the OS that's screwed up, it's ESXi that's screwed up (over provisioned.) We are trying to take a backup before we remove ESXi.
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@scottalanmiller said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@JaredBusch said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
Veeam agent has an option to do file level backups. But why wouldn't VSS work? I don't think it cares what's running under the OS or whether it's properly configured or not.
I would assume, because the OS is screwed up and VSS is broke. I've seen it before.
In that case I'd just copy the data by hand, then wipe OS and start from scratch.
Not the OS that's screwed up, it's ESXi that's screwed up (over provisioned.) We are trying to take a backup before we remove ESXi.
Can't you shut down VM, copy the VM files from ESXi and be done with it? And after changing hypervisor just convert it to whatever you're migrating to.
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So you need an agentless backup tool that works with ESXi?
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UrBackup is agent based, and would give you a VHD that you can restore to pretty much anything you wanted too, as well as the option to pull out individual files.
Not sure if you have the capacity on the host to do this. The "Server" could be literally anything on the client network with enough storage capacity to create the backup.
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@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
Can't you shut down VM, copy the VM files from ESXi and be done with it? And after changing hypervisor just convert it to whatever you're migrating to.
Likely not, because the host is over provisioned. So shutting it down might cause data loss.
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@DustinB3403 said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
So you need an agentless backup tool that works with ESXi?
WTF? No. He specifically stated something inside the OS as he stated "file based backup tool"
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@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@scottalanmiller said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@JaredBusch said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@marcinozga said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
Veeam agent has an option to do file level backups. But why wouldn't VSS work? I don't think it cares what's running under the OS or whether it's properly configured or not.
I would assume, because the OS is screwed up and VSS is broke. I've seen it before.
In that case I'd just copy the data by hand, then wipe OS and start from scratch.
Not the OS that's screwed up, it's ESXi that's screwed up (over provisioned.) We are trying to take a backup before we remove ESXi.
Can't you shut down VM, copy the VM files from ESXi and be done with it? And after changing hypervisor just convert it to whatever you're migrating to.
can I, yes. But we'd like a good backup prior to taking them offline. And thanks to horrific previous IT decisions, we have no access to do anything if the VM is down. So I need a tech on site to do that, and we have one flying there tonight, but we'd really like a good backup taken prior to them arriving.
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@DustinB3403 said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
So you need an agentless backup tool that works with ESXi?
No, that's what we have. We need something that does NOT do agentless and does not use VSS.
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@DustinB3403 said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
UrBackup isn't an agent. I have nowhere to run that from.
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@scottalanmiller said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
@DustinB3403 said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
UrBackup isn't an agent. I have nowhere to run that from.
Can you setup a cheap "server" on a laptop and simply install the agent onto the client. The client and server will find each other and then you create your file level backups.
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@scottalanmiller said in One Time, Non-Image, Windows Backup Client:
We have a critical Windows VM that we need to take a backup of us (manually.) No scheduling needed. We can't use Veeam or anything similar that uses an image based system as VSS is not working due to the former IT company misconfiguring VMware ESXi. So we need a file-based backup tool. The backup medium is a USB disk. We have enough space to hold the backup, but need to write to a file or folder, not take over the entire drive.
Any recommendations on the best tool to use? Thanks
Veeam doesn't use its own VSS driver? Or am I thinking of a different backup util... Have you tried?
