How to backup only VM content and not full size of VHD?

[wlliam01]

In wich config state the VM must be to be able to backup only the content of VM? And not the siste of the VHD?

I couldnt find some related post, sorry if already exists one

[daphnissov]

If you do not want to back up full VMDKs, your only option is to perform a guest-based backup in which you install an agent or process inside the guest OS and perform the backup from inside.

[wlliam01]

Thanks for your answer, do I need to reinstall everything again or can I only configure the guest OS on VM ?

If is that possible , can you suggest me an article to do these steps?

[daphnissov]

I just saw your tags for this post. Are you using Veeam? If so, you can specify which VMDK (in case there are multiple) you wish to exclude from given jobs. If that's not sufficient, you will not be able to back up this VM from an "image" perspective. You could look to install the Veeam Agent and only back up the files/folders you wish.

[wlliam01]

Im using vSphere 6.7 with Operations Management 6 Enterprise Plus with 2 VMs inside, a linux VM and windows server VM.

Each VM was installed in one SSD (for datacenters) each.

When I create a job in veeam, and select the vm that i want to back up, it shows the VM backup the same size of the disk (420gb)

What i wanted to do is back up only the content of this VM, to restore as quick I can.

As i read what you said, theres a config that I can do that allow me to backup only that content? Im using Veeam Enterprise too.

Thanks for your help again...

[daphnissov]

Although you could limit this data, if either of these VMs should go down, you will need to restore the whole VM in order to be back up and running. Otherwise, you would have to manually re-create a VM, install the OS, all applications, etc, and then restore the data. Do you really want to suffer that pain? Probably not. If the VM in question only has a single disk of 420 GB in size, then the disk exclusion feature will not work. When Veeam runs for the first time, it will create a full backup. Subsequent runs only produce incrementals so therefore the saved data is less. This is all subject to change depending on how you want to configure things, but regardless you would need to restore the full VM in a worst case scenario.

[wlliam01]

Hmm, got it.

But if I create a new VM, there's a config that will let me back up only the content of the VM? I mean, full operational system and user files dont exceed 30GB, i saw once a guy making backup and restore of the full VM fast and easy like that way.

I hope im not abusing of your time, my best regards

[daphnissov]

Without complicating things, I'll say again what your two options are:

1. Back up the entire VM. This is preferred because you'll need the whole VM if a complete restoration is necessary.
2. Install a guest agent inside the VM (like Veeam Agent for Windows) and selectively back up only the files you wish.

[wlliam01]

Thanks again for the attention.

I tried to create a new VM and in customize settings screen, I selected THIN PROVISIONED in hard disk tab.

For my surprise when I added this VM to VEEAM, the backup was only of the VM content.

My new question is, there's a way to change the disk mode of the existent working VMs from THICK PROVISIONED, LAZILY ZEROED, to THIN PROVISIONED?

Thanks everyone again for the attention. Its being too much helpfull

[daphnissov]

You're conflating two things here, neither of which has any bearing when it comes to what Veeam (or any other image-based backup application) protects. The disk format you use and the actual data inside of it aren't relevant at time of backup. Thick disks have zeros written to them (eager) or they don't (lazy). When Veeam backs this up, it ignores everything except the actual data while it may extend the processing time for thick eager disks. The resulting data that Veeam stores is only the used data blocks inside that VMDK.

[larstr]

wlliam01,

Veeam B&R will indeed only transfer the data of the content of the disk, not the free space. Veeam will also normally store the backups in in a way that saves you some space, either by using built in dedupe/compression or ideally ReFS.

Lars