Backup VMs to External USB Hard Drive

[asantia]

Hello,

I am new to VMware vSphere Hypervisor.

I have a ESXi 5.0 U1 system setup.

I want to be able to backup the VMs hosted on it to an external USB hard drive that is plugged directly into the host VMware server.

(I need usable backups to load onto another VMware server incase this one would ever go down.)

Can anyone shed some light on how to do preform this kind of backup?

Also any help on how to restore the VMs again if needed at a later time?

Thanks in advance.

[Leandro Nairn]

HI!

You can use Vmware converter to migrate the VMs from the ESXi to the Vmware Server machine.

See the vmware converter page http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

Regards

[asantia]

Sorry, but I don't believe you understand what I am asking.

I don't want to move VMs from one physical server to another.

I just want to backup the VMs on the one server I have to an external USB hard drive.

In a way taht they can be re-imported if something critical would ever happen.

[sparrowangelste]

http://www.veeam.com/virtual-machine-backup-solution-free.html

Free and works well.

It will abckup your vm and restore it as well.

Also try this:

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760

[vMariaL]

sparrowangelstechnology wrote:

http://www.veeam.com/virtual-machine-backup-solution-free.html

Free and works well.

It will abckup your vm and restore it as well.

Also try this:

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760

Hi sparrowangelstechnology, thank you for mentioning Veeam!

I just wanted to add a couple of words about Veeam Backup Free. It's a free tool built specifically for virtualization which supports VMware and Hyper-V. Veeam Backup Free provides a subset of the functionality of the paid version enough for day-to-day VM management. Using this tool, you can create ad-hoc backups of your live VMware VMs, migrate VMs between hosts and datastores if even vMotion and vStorage Motion aren't available, copy VMs and more.

It's important to mention that Veeam Backup Free has no limitations on the number of VMs and no expiration date. The minimum required VMware licensing is vSphere Essentials.

Please let me know if any questions will appear or you will need any assistance.

----

Veeam Community Manager

[admin]

If your VM is named "FooVM", then you can create a snapshot using:

VBoxManage snapshot FooVM take FooVM_Snapshot1 

Via command line you can configure where to store the snapshots:

VBoxManage configvm FooVM --snapshotfolder /media/foostick/foofolder 

However, take care that the UBS hard drive is available all the time.

You can automate the backups using cron jobs. And there is no need to poweroff the VMs.

[summer123]

You can use free server backup software to backup and your entire disk or partition to your USB. There are so many software on the market, such as AOMEI Data Backuper, acronis true image, easeus todo backup, etc. All of them can help you backup and restore your disk/partition/applications.

http://www.aomeitech.com/features/disk-backup.html

http://www.aomeitech.com/features/disk-restore.html

[ZNOX]

Hi! Had the same question, and accidentaly bumped into paragon's VM Copy Tool. Turns out it creates a full backup of a virtual machine including its current state, all available snapshots, and connected external devices. You can find it here:

Easy Ad-hoc VM Backup and VM Migration - Paragon Protect & Restore VM Copy Tool

[usfreak13]

Hello,

I've figured out the best way to copy entire VM from Datastore to External HDD. This is for everyone who have been struggling to get this done without using any 3rd party softwares or backup solution. This would copy the entire VM folder from your datastore to any path you provide on your computer.

All you need to do is the following.
1) Install WINSCP on your computer
2) Login to web console of your VMware
3) Navigate to Host on the left panel and then click on Action from the top menu bar.
4) Then from the Menu -> Services-> Enable Secure Shell(ssh)
5) Now open WINSCP enter your VM Server credentials and Login.
6) It will show you all your Datastore VM Folders
7) On the left Panel you can select the path you want to save your VM Folder
Just copy the entire folder and wait for it to complete.
9) Volla and you are done. 
10) You entire VMware has been backed up depending on the Volume of your VM and LAN speed.
11) Enjoy.. Try and do comment how it went..Cheers

[Laithan]

Just leaving this here for those that have this capability. I have a small QNAP NAS that is configured as an NFS share. Using Datastore browser (with the VMs off of course, so this is a drawback) I simply COPY the entire VM folder to the NFS share using the built in datastrore browser. It takes a little while but it works. After it finishes copying, I can then access that share from any PC with an External drive connected and I copy it over. It does take "double" the time but the 2nd copy is only a backup copy anyway so I don't care how long it takes and I usually leave the copy on the NAS also for good measure. No applications or utilities required, just need an NFS share.

I do want to try WINSCP also though as I haven't tried that and it would be faster. Thanks for sharing.

[Shilpa_70]

Hi,

I tried the process explained by you, once we open the WINSCP step # 5, we sholud enter the host credential on VM server Credentials?

I have entered the Host ESX server credentials, but unable to see the Datastores, please help.

Regards

Shilpa