Developer Suggestion - FLR Support for RAIDED DISKS

[joelc67]

I have many scenarios where I have had to create multiple virtual hard disks, then pool them together into a drive pool within Windows 2012 so I could attain a large multi-terabyte file server, only to find out later that Veeam FLR will not recognize the disk pool. Please consider making it so that Veeam can perform file level recovery on Server 2012 pooled/raided disks. Not everyone is going to rush to implement VMware ESXi 5.5 so we can make larger than 2TB virtual drives so that Veeam can then (potentially) support FLR. I see this more as a limitation of Veeam not being able to work with Windows Server 2012 disk pools, rather than it being the vault of VMware/ESXi virtual disk limitations.

Thanks for the consideration.

[Gostev]

One thing you can do is use dynamic disks instead, these are supported by FLR.

[joelc67]

So if I convert from basis disks to dynamic disks on these Server 2012 pooled disk volumes FLR will work? Thanks for the reply.

[Vitaliy S.]

I believe Anton was suggesting a bit different solution - use dynamic disks instead of pooled disk volumes.

[joelc67]

You have to pool the disks to be able to create a single volume. I changed the basic disk to a dynamic disk and it had no affect on the FLR. It still only can see the "C" drive. In this case the server has two volumes. One is C and the other H. I did not delete the current backups. They are setup as reverse incrementals, so the last backup should be merging changes to the "Full Backup" every day. I am assuming I don't have to destroy my existing backups to make the now "dynamic H disk" appear in the FLR process.

[Vitaliy S.]

I changed the basic disk to a dynamic disk and it had no affect on the FLR.

Yes, that's expected as these disks are still pooled ones.

As a workaround you can use Instant VM recovery to bring this VM online in the matter of minutes and then copy the required files back to production.

[joelc67]

The instant VM recovery is an option; in fact my only option. However, it does not take minutes it can take like 45 minutes to an hour. I invested time into this before and it takes about 48 steps to instant recover a VM, while not mistakenly affecting the live production VM still running, copy a single file off and then remove the Instant recovery VM. Perhaps I am going about it the wrong way, but I have not seen another process of recovering files from a VM that has pooled disks yet. That is why I am asking for Veeam developer team to find it in their heart to be completely compatible with Windows Server 2012 pooled disks; which is a pretty common feature used on larger than 2TB drives on a VMware VM.

[Vitaliy S.]

That is why I am asking for Veeam developer team to find it in their heart to be completely compatible with Windows Server 2012 pooled disks; which is a pretty common feature used on larger than 2TB drives on a VMware VM.

... and this forum is the best place to do that. Thanks for the feedback!