Replacement Laptop restores

[SGuardian]

Is there a knowledge base / procedure on how to restore files off of the portable media (western digital 1 TB drive) onto a new replacement laptop? How does the SQL Express database get moved over to the new replacement laptop?

[Mike Resseler]

Hi,

Exactly the same way as you would do a BMR to the same computer. Simply boot from your recovery media, with the sole difference that you might need to load additional drivers afterwards (which you can do on the recovery media. Check out our helpcenter (http://helpcenter.veeam.com/endpoint/10/) for more information.

There is a catch though. The drive in the new laptop needs to be the same size (or larger) than the previous one. Restoring to a smaller harddrive is not (yet) implemented

Cheers

Mike

[SGuardian]

Is there a way to only restore files onto the replacement laptop from the portable media?

[Mike Resseler]

Not directly. Just install VEBF onto the new latop, right-click on the tray icon and choose restore files. Choose previous, browse and point to the backup files from the previous laptop and start restoring

[sbbots]

"There is a catch though. The drive in the new laptop needs to be the same size (or larger) than the previous one. Restoring to a smaller harddrive is not (yet) implemented"

That is sort of a huge catch IMO.

In my test case today I tried migrating a windows install from a 750GB standard hard drive to a 240GB SSD. That's when I found this limitation. I assume a workaround would be to simply reduce the size of the OS volume to a size that will fit into the new drive, then do a full backup before starting to migrate. I guess I will find out shortly...

[sbbots]

I assume a workaround would be to simply reduce the size of the OS volume to a size that will fit into the new drive, then do a full backup before starting to migrate.

In my case the 750GB volume was just too big to shrink down enough to fit into the new drive. I went with my trusty Macrium Reflect to do the migration (sorry, not trying to promote another product). Once Veeam incorporates downsizing of volume restores I have no doubt it will be the best migration tool you can use.

[Gostev]

It's doable and should hopefully make it into the next update.

[Mike Resseler]

Matt,

As Anton states, it is doable but it requires work and testing. It is certainly on the to-do list. One question though: Imagine you want to migrate to a smaller disk, that is actually to small to hold the data that is now on the larger disk. Does your other tool provide a possibility to do something about it? And if so, what is the procedure?

Thanks

Mike

[Dima P.]

Hi Matt,
Thanks for the heads up. Speaking of shrink, would it be enough just to fit the smaller disk or are you looking for enhanced resize support like specifying the exact volume size upon restore?

[sbbots]

One question though: Imagine you want to migrate to a smaller disk, that is actually to small to hold the data that is now on the larger disk. Does your other tool provide a possibility to do something about it? And if so, what is the procedure?

If the data set is larger than the drive being moved to then migration is not possible. I don't think there is any migration software (except video re-encoding software) that can shrink general data to fit onto a smaller drive.

In my case the OS volume on the original drive was ~700GB in size but it only contained about 30GB of actual data. Even though the data will fit on the smaller drive, VEP forces me to create a 700GB volume on the SSD instead of shrinking the volume to 224GB.

Speaking of shrink, would it be enough just to fit the smaller disk or are you looking for enhanced resize support like specifying the exact volume size upon restore?

I think most users would be perfectly happy to have VEP just fit the smaller disk. Enhanced partitioning/sizing of volumes can be left to Computer Management.

I just migrated another drive this afternoon. From a 500GB standard drive to a 240GB SSD. If you look at the Macrium Reflect summary below the original drive (top) has (1) 100MB partition and (1) 465GB partition. Reflect just downsized the 465GB partition to fit on to the 223GB SSD partition nice and neat.

[Mike Resseler]

Matt ,

Thanks for all the intel. I heard about a software (but never found it although I extensively googled ) that was able to "unselect files" in case the BMR was larger then the target disk. Not sure if this is something you actually want to do, but I was curious about it

Also thanks for the feedback on the partitioning. I kind of agree with you there

Mike