Veeam Recovery Media vs Window Recovery Drive ?

[techgirl]

How does Veeam Agent for Windows "Recovery Media" differ from Windows "Recovery Drive?"

Windows demands "at least 8 GB" stick - would not take one that was nominally 8GB but effectively 7.48 GB - but ended up writing only 4.63 GB
Veeam's process consumed only 0.52 GB

Can both of these be put on the same stick ?

What does the Windows recovery include that Veaam does not ?

[Mike Resseler]

Hi Techgirl,

I assume you are using windows 8.1 or 10? The recovery drive is a USB stick that also adds the recovery partition on it (the hidden partition). Veeam Recovery Media does not do that as all the information is on the backup itself. That recovery media will make a big difference in size. Also, our recovery media is different in such a way that we have the possibility to recover a Veeam Agent for Windows backup (which Windows Recovery Drive hasn't) and we included tools to troubleshoot before actually doing a restore (which is handy in case you are not able to boot but want to do some checks before actually doing a bare metal restore)

There are ways of creating a multi-boot USB stick, but not with our wizard. Our wizard will require to format everything first and as far as I can remember the same happens with the Windows Recovery drive creation, which means you will need additional tools/ programs to make a multi-boot stick

Hope it helps
Mike

[techgirl]

Thank you!
Yes, Windows 10.
I made both ... see those small older drives are still useful after all

Is it necessary to redo the Veeam Recovery Media at regular intervals or only once per computer ?
Is it transferable between computers ?

[Mike Resseler]

You only need to redo the Veeam recovery media when major changes have occurred:
* New drivers/ hardware
* Major update to the OS

You can use the recovery media on other computers also, but then the drivers for that computer won't be on the recovery media, so you might need to manually load them before being able to restore

[techgirl]

Mike said:
"The recovery drive is a USB stick that also adds the recovery partition on it (the hidden partition). Veeam Recovery Media does not do that as all the information is on the backup itself."

AHA. The Veeam recovery USB can not be used in isolation, you must also be have a valid Veeam backup available.
And the backup would need to be "Entire Computer" or "Volume level backup" (and volume(s) selected include the drive Windows is on)

What about File Level backup - what is the difference in "Operating system" and "System" - which choice contains necessary files to recover with?

[Dima P.]

AHA. The Veeam recovery USB can not be used in isolation, you must also be have a valid Veeam backup available.
And the backup would need to be "Entire Computer" or "Volume level backup" (and volume(s) selected include the drive Windows is on)

Yup!

what is the difference in "Operating system" and "System" - which choice contains necessary files to recover with?

For file level backup mode we have a predefined checkbox called operating system but it's the same as when you check operating system volume with EFI or System Reserved partition manually (basically for the ease of use).