file share backup vs vm backup

Post by **balma01** » Jul 06, 2020 4:06 pm this post

from a performance point of view, is it better to backup/replicate a VM containing a file server or to perform a file share backup ?

Post by **Gostev** » Jul 06, 2020 6:12 pm this post

Image-level backup of the server itself will always work much faster, and also result in much lower source storage load.

Post by **jmmarton** » Aug 06, 2020 9:53 pm this post

This is assuming the file server data for the VM is located within the VM, meaning in a VMDK/VHD. If the data is external to the VM (e.g. using in-guest iSCSI), requiring the Veeam agent, then depending on the size of the file server it may be worth looking at using the NAS backup feature instead.

Joe