Backing up ESXi on NFSv3 Datastores - Direct NFS?

[musicwallaby]

I have a small environment with four ESXi 7 ( soon to be upgraded to ESXi 8 ) hosts using NFSv3 storage.

The environment is small enough that I only need one proxy and the proxy is on one of the NFSv3 datastores.

I'm finding that if I leave my proxy to "automatic" it tries to use hotadd mode and I'm encountering what I believe is the "stun" issue documented here.

https://www.veeam.com/kb1681

Is the recommendation still to use Direct NFS and if so is it as simple as adding a second NIC to the proxy that is on the NFS VLAN please?

Is there anything I need to be wary of before doing this please?

What exactly happens if a backup is run and a snapshot exists of a VM please?

Cheers

Jas!

[david.domask]

Hi musicwallaby,

Yes, DirectNFS or consider following the Broadcom article on this subject and moving away from NFSv3 for the datastores if feasible.

Ensure that the proxy can reach the datastore and see the requirements here. No immediate precautions come to mind for this configuration.

> What exactly happens if a backup is run and a snapshot exists of a VM please?

While potentially "nothing" changes, it's best to ensure no unnecessary snapshots remain, as backing up a machine with snapshots can increase load on the host/datastore, affect VM performance during backup, and potentially prevent CBT from being used. While the backup ought go through, there are other edge cases where the backup may fail, so it's best to follow VMware's advice and ensure that snapshots are removed once they are no longer required.

[musicwallaby]

Well technically I could use NFSv4 as the storage is Netapp NAS which supports it.

Most of what I read suggests sticking with NFSv3 with ESXi but it's never entirely clear why other than because it's hold and hell and seems to be considered more stable.

Jas