Standalone backup agent for Microsoft Windows servers and workstations (formerly Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE)
Post Reply
sauvel
Lurker
Posts: 2
Liked: 2 times
Joined: May 28, 2016 1:17 am
Full Name: laurent sauve
Contact:

Feature request and user feedback

Post by sauvel » 1 person likes this post

Hello Dear Veeam team,

I recently tried out the endpoint replication product by doing 2 bare metal restore operations on laptops and desktops that I wanted to upgrade from conventional hard disks to ssd.

I succeeded but with some trouble. I encountered issues with partitioning the new disks and also with windows updates. Here are the details with the suggestions.

1. I had to use manual partitioning on the new disks which were smaller (being ssd). This should have been easy since the total backup size was much smaller than the new disk capacity. Not only that, but the partitioning tool proved insufficient on new disk which contained an old OS installation. I had to boot the target machine with gparted and use that tool to do the partitioning, after that, everything went well. The crux of the matter is that the manual partitioning tool is surprisingly limited in its capabilities. The user can work around that but it might scare some and it slows down the recovery process.

2. In both cases, after the restore completed, I realized that the windows update mechanism was broken. To repair it, I had to get the appropriate microsoft Fixit kit, apply it and then reboot 2-3 times while checking for updates for the process to be correctly reestablished. Given that this happened two times out of two, I guess it is a feature and not a bug. Again this is really annoying and if fixable without major errors it should be fixed.

Now the good stuff, I was really impressed by the capabilities of the product (I am just grumpy). Not only did the restore succeed both times but the backup process afterwards works really smooth. Congratulations, I will recommend that people try that solution.

P.S. Bonus issue ! I just remembered that while doing bare metal restore, forget about injecting drivers if the hardware is in any different. The injection process failed both times but the suggestion to disable it if it failed was correct and useful even if a bit weakly worded. It should really say, unless your hardware is identical do not even try to inject drivers... it will screw up for sure.
Dima P.
Product Manager
Posts: 14396
Liked: 1568 times
Joined: Feb 04, 2013 2:07 pm
Full Name: Dmitry Popov
Location: Prague
Contact:

Re: Feature request and user feedback

Post by Dima P. »

Hi Laurent,
Thanks a lot for sharing your experience!
The crux of the matter is that the manual partitioning tool is surprisingly limited in its capabilities
I wonder what features you would like to include in existing resize functionality?
I realized that the windows update mechanism was broken
Can you clarify what operating systems were restored?
. It should really say, unless your hardware is identical do not even try to inject drivers... it will screw up for sure.
Fair. Thanks!
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 23 guests