Backup USB Drives

[pio]

Just tried to backup my laptop, but EB does not allow me to backup external usb drives. Is there any way to force the backup of external hard drives?

[Dima P.]

Hi pio,
I don’t want to upset you, but backup of the external devices is not supported in v1.

[pio]

Why not support it? Every competitor supports this. This isn't such an unusual use case that people use external drives as permanent data storage.

[Dima P.]

people use external drives as permanent data storage

Makes sense, thanks. We will discuss it with the team

[TroyResources]

Hi Dima,

My end users are quite unique as in they have attached USB drivers that are 1TB or 2TB with Geological mining data.
Data is on a server and sync'd when then can, but they frequently travel with this data in the field and naturally accumulate and create data.

I was hoping Veeam Endpoint backup would allow me to select these drives as well, but alas it seems not having searched forums and come across this post.

Happily be a customer that would pay for this software/feature in another release/update.
Veeam end point just fits so well into our organisation, I'm loathed to start looking at competitors alternatives.

[TroyResources]

Sent reply to quickly, additionally this feature would be rolled out to sites in Argentina, Australia, Canada and Guyana.

In the mean time it is still being tested for BMR (bare metal recovery)

[Mike Resseler]

Hi,

I haven't received news yet about this feature as of today but I know it is on the table for sure to look at it. Can I ask an additional question? When you would be backing up the PC and the USB device, what target would you choose?

Thanks

Mike

[TroyResources]

@Mike,

Hi Mike, Good to hear this might be on the cards soon!
Currently we are testing with view to rolling out for BMR.

If this feature was available to include external USB drive, we would do the following.

Backups would be done daily at 10am when backup target is connected with 7 days of restore points.
In our environment target for backups are Veeam Backup and Replication repository.

By doing it this way key staff members could ensure there data was not only safe, but could have a member of global IT team to restore missing data and/or complete laptop.

[Mike Resseler]

Hi,

Good feedback, those type of scenario's that you (all) describe makes it easier for us to understand what and how it is being used and help us a lot in planning

Greatly appreciated

Mike

[TroyResources]

Thanks Mike, as I said don't want to go to another vendor like acronis who do include this feature.
Really the key part is if this was available having this level if backup visibility across the globe, that's just stellar!

[Dima P.]

Hey shades0fblack,
Just wanted to leave a reply here as well: we will get backup to this feature discussions (I mean internal discussions with the DEV and QA teams) after the upcoming Endpoint update. Thanks for all your use cases - helps a lot!

[TroyResources]

That's great news as I'm sure many others will appreciate this feature after endpoint update.

[mcsuran23]

Hey there Devs! This is great news that usb support is on the table. I would like to add a few things. After speaking with a Veeam support member, he explained that you utilize Microsoft's VSS snapshots which can only be used on SCSI devices. After researching VSS a bit more, I found this:

"Can VSS create shadow copies of non-NTFS volumes?

Yes. However, persistent shadow copies can be made only for NTFS volumes. In addition, at least one volume mounted on the system must be an NTFS volume."

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/lib ... s.10).aspx

That is a little confusing to me since I read that as usb support already being supported, but with limited functionality. Hopefully one of the Devs can shed some more light on that?

I would personally be backing up an internal HDD and USB memory stick to an external HDD connected via USB.

Look forward to your response. Thanks!

Mat

[Mike Resseler]

Mat,

I am not sure where you read that USB support is there already... with limited functionality. We support USB device as a target, but we don't backup anything from a USB device.

Mike

[OneGH]

Hi All,

I would just inform Veeam that i am looking same functionalities as "shades0fblack".
I will use Veeam EndPoint Backup in the same way.

Thank's for this great product, with this additional option i will phase out Symantec Desktop and Laptop option.

BR,
Geoffroy

[Dima P.]

Hello,
Thanks for the feedback!

I would just inform Veeam that i am looking same functionalities as "shades0fblack".

We want to ask you to go a little further and share a use case you are going to cover with such functionality - it might help us to push this feature request further, so thanks in advance.

[tao.yang]

I also need this feature if I am going to be using this product for backing up my PC. I'm using a Intel NUC with couple of USB 3 drives as my primary storage devices. The backup destination would either be USB drives or a network share hosted on a NAS.

[mhg]

Actually tao.yang has exactly described my needs: to backup of USB HDD to Synology NAS SMB share (using file level backup).

[Dima P.]

Guys,
Want to clarify some things with you. How common is installing the operating system on the external USB device, because in my understanding its only used as the data dumpster. Thanks in advance.

[mhg]

Correct (at least in my practice). I don't install OS on my USB drive.

[churos]

Hello,
as well I intercede for adding functionality backup external USB hard drive

On the road I working with an external 1TB hard drive, and at home I need back up him as well as a laptop for home NAS (Synology). Now I have to run the scheduled task with scripted robocopy and 7zip

[Dima P.]

churos,
Thinking out loud - backing up the data from your USB device will prevent you from instantly accessing these files. File level recovery is quick but you have to run it every time you need to get a single file

[nchand]

Would just like to add my desire also for the ability to backup external USB devices. I use a Drobo 5D USB3 DAS as a file storage device. Looks like I cannot set this up as a backup source with the current version.

[Dima P.]

nchand,
Can you elaborate where you want to store this backed up device? Thanks

[nchand]

Here is a thread I started, offers info on my setup.

http://forums.veeam.com/veeam-endpoint- ... 29718.html

Basically, I have a fileserver hosting data on a USB 3 DAS RAID device (Drobo 5D). I want to be able to backup this device, but it does not seem possible with VEB under current VEB configuration features.

[Dima P.]

Thanks for clarification. A side question – does this Drobo support iSCSI? If yes, you can mount the volume via iSCSI initiator and then add it to the backup's source volumes.

[nchand]

No, this is a direct attached storage device. Only USB3 and thunderbolt. I have several users with external USB storage devices who would really benefit from VEB too.

[jowidi]

Veeam Endpoint Backup is a great product, especially considering the fact that it is free. So I was really surprised to find that it cannot be used to backup external USB devices. This use case becomes more and more common as many users now buy laptops when they are forced to replace their aging desktop computers. These machines have many advantages but a lot of them lack the capacity to store the huge amounts of photos, videos and music files that are now commonplace in many households.

So it is not unusual to see the combo 'fast laptop with SSD drive and big external USB drive'. I think veeam should consider adding support for backing up external USB devices to Endpoint Backup. Quite a number of laptop users (myself included) would appreciate that.

[Gostev]

@Dima probably we should allow backing up external hard drives for advanced users via volume level backup. Not selected by default, but can be checked as well.

[mhg]

Actually I need to exclude some large files from backup so I'd prefer to use file level backup than volume level for my USB drive in order to shorten backup time.