Feature Request | Easier restore from tape

[Nax]

One thing I miss about backup exec (and I shudder when i say this) is being able to restore exactly from the tape you need to insert. It has the file information saved locally to a database so you can browse what you backed up by date (image here: http://puu.sh/rcb0O/86c075bc8c.png) and then it will tell you what tape you need. I don't like how veeam has to use all the tapes to mount the vbk just to get a handful of files. Restoring from tape already takes forever and a day. Making this more seamless would be awesome!

Otherwise veeam is awesome, thanks a lot

[Dima P.]

Hi Nax,

Are you talking about restoring files directly from the backups written to tape? For regular files written to tape you could use VBR’s file catalogue.

[veremin]

Could you tell us what type of tape job are you using: file to tape or backup to tape one? Based on the answer, we could suggest several options, in accordance. Thanks.

[Nax]

Ah this is an improvement! I still have to load the entire .VBK back. I still can't browse a filestore of a backup before I spend the time restoring to disk only to browse the filestore anyway

[veremin]

I still have to load the entire .VBK back.

That's by design.

However, in version 9.5 you will be able to restore VM directly from tapes, meaning even though there are many VMs present in one or many backup files, it will be possible to restore only one machine without restoring whole backup chain to staging location first.

Thanks.

[UT2015]

Restoring a single VM is an improvement, yes.

But still it is *very* impractical! If you have a fileserver VM, hosting some TerraBytes of data, still the complete VM must be restored from tape even if only a single small file is needed?

[veremin]

We're still talking about long-term secondary location of your backup data that is often considered to be the last resort. So, fast granular file restore does not appear to be the primary use case here.

However, Direct VM Restore is a good first step, let's see what happens next.

Thanks.

[UT2015]

You are right, it is not the primary use case, but we got used to this feature in our old backup software, so it is definately a step backwards now with Veeam.

[veremin]

We understand that and surely will continue enhancing tape restore capabilities down the road, based on the demand coming from our customers. Thanks.