Backup & Recovery

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  • 1.  Backup NFS Storage

    Posted Jan 05, 2011 11:30 AM

    Hello,

    My current setup includes 2 HP Proliant with esxi 4.1, local storage (Raid5 using Sata disks) and about 10 Virtual Machines. I'm looking for an inexpensive solution to backup my VM. Currently we have an Iomega StorCenter Pro NAS ix4-200r, my idea is to use this device as centralized NFS storage for esxi hosts, share VM folder through CIFS and schedule a backup job from a workstation using a VSS compliant backup software like Cobian (without the need to shout down each vm). Is this a good solution? Can I consider something better?

    Thanks.



  • 2.  RE: Backup NFS Storage

    Posted Jan 05, 2011 11:35 AM

    Hi,

    Welcome on board.

    May i know which version of vSphere 4 you're using. Certain versions have VMware Data Recovery and solve your problem right away.



  • 3.  RE: Backup NFS Storage

    Posted Jan 05, 2011 11:40 AM

    esxi 4.1 free.



  • 4.  RE: Backup NFS Storage

    Posted Jan 05, 2011 11:46 AM

    then refer to here: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10780

    all the best =)



  • 5.  RE: Backup NFS Storage

    Posted Jan 07, 2011 08:36 AM

    Thanks idle-jam,

    Very useful document.It should work. However someone has experience with this kind of setup? Any comments?

    It might be a better solution to maintain local storage and use vm explorer for vm backups?



  • 6.  RE: Backup NFS Storage

    Posted Jan 11, 2011 10:53 AM

    I did some tests after reading more documentation. VSS only works with NTFS filesystems (no network drives), so it is not a solution for this scenario.

    I tried to access NFS storage (shared with CIFS) from my Windows client and copy all virtual machines locally. It works. I would expect that the virtual disks were locked by esxi, instead the copy is completed without problems. Can someone give me an explanation?