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KevinW
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Feature Request (possibly) - Individual file history

Post by KevinW » 1 person likes this post

Hi

Our company has been using Veeam for a couple of years now (upon my recommendation) and I think it’s a fantastic backup tool. I’m also enjoying your excellent Endpoint protection software which I hope will become GA soon.

I have a little bit of an issue, with restoring files that I’m hoping you can help with.

I’ve noticed that Veeam is excellent for restoring a file from a specific point in time for which you know you have a valid working backup of it. Sometimes however, we need to restore a file which has become corrupted or has undergone a major change but we don’t know when this corruption or change may have occurred.

Traditionally, using our physical server backup software, we were able to browse for a specific file in our restore window. Right click on it and view its previous version history. We could then at a glance see what restore points were available which included date modified and file size for each restore point. This ultimately gives us a compact timeline view of the file which is very useful for finding a point in time when a file may have become corrupted or grew massively in size for example.

The only way I can see to do this in Veeam is to select a restore point in Enterprise Manager, browse for the file, check and make a note of its details, then rinse and repeat for all previous iterations until I think I’ve found the backup file that I want.

Is there a better way to achieve this in Veeam ?

If not, could I request a timeline feature for individual files in enterprise manager. It seems that all the relevant information is already in the database, it just takes some time to collate it.

Many thanks

Kev
PaulNSW
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Re: Feature Request (possibly) - Individual file history

Post by PaulNSW »

I'd also like to request something like this, and maybe in addition it could recover all (or a range of) versions of a specific file.

It's pretty cumbersome trying to find the right version of a specific file, especially when the navigation tree resets after changing the restore point
nefes
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Re: Feature Request (possibly) - Individual file history

Post by nefes »

If you have Enterprise Manager and have indexing enabled, you could search some file within all existing backups. You will see file size, date modified and corresponding restore point time.
There's also some extended search filters, such as mentioned size, modified date and so on.
KevinW
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Re: Feature Request (possibly) - Individual file history

Post by KevinW » 1 person likes this post

Hi Thanks for pointing this out,

I've had a chance to test this functionality and it is easier to identify which backup contains the file that you are after, though it is slightly long winded as I had to:

Select the VM Name
Open advanced search
Select a range of dates
Input the filename in the Search field and click search

It also does rely on you knowing a very close approximation of what the file is called. As if you don't know and you wildcard it, you get a lot of information to wade through.

The results appear to be outputted in date order which seems logical, but this if your search has picked up say three matching results on one backup which are in different directories (for example desktop.ini), then each of these 3 results are listed in turn for each day that you have searched. You then find yourself comparing every third result and things quickly get messy. The only way around this is to come out and refine your search by folder location and try again.

Also, once I've finally identified the file I'm after and click on it in the search window - it only tells me in which backup it is located (I have no option top restore from that window), so I have to remember it and then click on browse, select the date, then drill down to the file and restore.

All in all, the functionality is there but it's not very intuitive and is slightly laborious, I think that the right click option for a specific file is still a good idea if it could be implemented.

Our physical server software implemented this functionality by having a single browse window for a server which contained the merged directory trees of all the backups so you could browse for a file whether it still existed or not, then right click on it and restore.

I think this would be a great addition to the product.
Greg_Bieber
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Re: Feature Request (possibly) - Individual file history

Post by Greg_Bieber »

Hello,

I agree with KevinW.
I'm searching for a corrupted file and the customer don't know when the file was corrupted. :? :|
It's not the first time it happens and I lost on each demand a lot of time which is money as everybody knows :evil:
So I browse the restore points one by one an it take a long time because the VM is big 2.5To. :shock: :(
I take time to search for a option today and found this thread.
So I've juste installed Entreprise manager and think it helps but no :x because I have to modify my jobs to activate the indexing guest os option :x
So I activate the option for the future but for this time I've no choice to search manually :evil:
I hope that the backup don't take too long to finish with this option enabled :roll:
We use an other backup software for years which is ARCserve and this is a fonctionnality which is bultin and I think it's fundamental.

Regards.
foggy
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Re: Feature Request (possibly) - Individual file history

Post by foggy »

KevinW wrote:Also, once I've finally identified the file I'm after and click on it in the search window - it only tells me in which backup it is located (I have no option top restore from that window), so I have to remember it and then click on browse, select the date, then drill down to the file and restore.
Actually, if you right-click the file in the search results, you do have an option o restore it, as well as save in some other location.
Greg_Bieber wrote:I hope that the backup don't take too long to finish with this option enabled :roll:
Depends on the number of files, however typically guest OS indexing is pretty fast due to getting data directly from MFT (rather than by scanning the entire file system) and being performed in parallel with backup.
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