VM Size

[mikethelad]

Veeam is showing the a VM size as 709GB, looking at the VHDX file is only 500GB, am still backing up to tape and this total is 650GB and this includes 6 other servers, so I am confused why Veeam is so big, this backs upto a NAS drive which is fine and also a cloud storage where we are paying per GB

[Mildur]

Hi Mike

Single VM 709GB reported in Veeam, VHDX file only 500GB
Can you confirm?
You are using dynamic disks. 709GB is the configured disk size, and only 500GB are allocated by the VM?
That would explain the difference between 709GB + 500GB.

650GB to Tape
In my understanding from your description, the size of all 6 servers on Tape is 650GB.
When Veeam does a backup to disk, we see space reduction of ~50%. If all your server could be reduced to 50% of their used storage, writing only 650GB to tape is much possible.
250-300GB from the 709GB server, and 350GB from the other 5.

If you want to know exactly what happened because you think something is wrong, you can always open a support case and upload the debug log files from your backup server. Our customer support will be able to tell you how the 650GB on Tape came together from the log files.

Best,
Fabian

[mikethelad]

Hi, thanks for your reply

Both the Host and VM disks are confirmed a Basic Types

[Mildur]

HyperV VMs are using one of the following disk types:
- Fixed size vDisks
- dynamically expanding vDisk
- differencing Disks

Which type have you configured for your VMs? I assume dynamically expanding.
You choose the type in the VM properties when you have deployed your VM.

Best,
Fabian

[mikethelad]

Yes correct they are Dynamically expanding

I recently cleared 200gb of files and the tape backup reduced accordingly but the Veeam NAS / Cloud has not, so presume a Shrink of the VM disk could resolve this?

[Mildur]

Then that's the reason why you only see 500GB vhdx files, but 709GB in Veeam.
You can try to use Hyper-V board tools to shrink a disk. This is outside of Veeam's Scope. I suggest to get familiar with the shrinking topic first before you do it on production VMs:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power ... ver2022-ps

But I don't think it will change much on Veeam's side. Veeam already excludes blocks with deleted data from a VM backup. The feature is called Bitlooker:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

Best,
Fabian

[mikethelad]

Thanks, yes have the same settings as per your link, is it worth tying increasing the compression level?

[Mildur]

You can try, if you have the CPU power for higher compression levels. It won't be reactive to existing data in your backup repository.
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120

Best,
Fabian