Best Practice for Guest OS File Level Restore from Tape

[blu]

Hello,

I have a question regarding guest OS file level restore from tape.
We are backing up our windows file server over SAN to a local attached storage on the Veeam backup server. The file server is a virtul machine on a vsphere cluster. This backup is copied to tape.
To restore single files or folders from the backup on tape we first have to restore the whole backup to a local storage.
Since the file server has more than 10 TB of data this is very inconvenient.
We need to have the same amout of data free as the file server backup has. With a size of 10 TB this is very much.
Also this is very time consuming for restoring a single file.

I read about the file to tape job to backup files and folders directly on the tape. This should allow a direct restore of single files and folders from tape. But I couldn't figure out how this is working with a virtual machine. Furthermore I guess I will loose the functionallity of backing up directly from san.

Does anyone can help me with that?
Is there any other option to restore single files without restoring the whole backup from tape to local storage?

[Dima P.]

Hello and welcome to the community blu,

To restore single files or folders from the backup on tape we first have to restore the whole backup to a local storage.

That's correct, it's not possible to restore a single file from the backup file on tape.

I read about the file to tape job to backup files and folders directly on the tape. This should allow a direct restore of single files and folders from tape. But I couldn't figure out how this is working with a virtual machine

Add your file server as Managed server to Veeam B&R console. Once done, it should be possible to select this managed server as a source for file to tape job. You can define the specific folders to be processed by file to tape, so entire server backup is not required. Cheers!