File level restore with 3rd party tools (Robocopy)

[Neurobit]

Here's another request.

While doing a large file level restore (1.5TB) of one of our File servers that became unresponsive a couple of weeks ago, and could not be restored otherwise, I came to realize that for large amounts of data (or moderate data with thousands of small files) this is a very time consuming and cumbersome operation.
In addition to the file creation timestamp issues mentioned above, simple file copies do not support long paths longer than 260 characters, so every time you get one of these errors, you have to click "OK" to acknowledge, or else the file copy process will not proceed. Same with file permission errors.

To make a long story short, we've spent several days restoring this server because we had to sit in front of a screen clicking OK/Enter thousands of times to get the file copy process to finish for each share that we needed to recover. It would be great if Veeam would be able to utilize Microsoft's Robocopy which is standard on many of the newer Windows installations and use it for this process. I know it would have made our lives much, much easier, as this isn't something I'd like to repeat ever again.

Neurobit.

[Gostev]

No topic hi-jacking please I will delete this once you read, but you can use Robocopy today, as guest volumes are being mounted on your Veeam Backup server during file level restore (check out under My Computer). So, use can use whatever tool you like to copy stuff from there.

[tsightler]

Anton, you might consider simply spinning this off to it's own thread. It's a good question, and the answer is also good. It seems like a lot of users don't realize that they can use any Windows tool they like to restore files, they just see the Veeam browser and think that's the only way to restore things, they don't even realize that behind the scenes Veeam actually just mounted the volume to the Windows server. Perhaps something in the restore Wizard could highlight this capability.

[Gostev]

Good idea, done.

[Neurobit]

Thanks Anton and tsightler.

You are correct, I was not aware of this feature, and thought the only way to do this via the Veeam browser.

[grauwej]

Hi,

We're using VEEAM Backup and Replication version 5.0.1.198 (64 bit) on a Windows 2008 R2 Standard. But we don't see the mounted volume containing the backup. We would really appreciate being able to use Windows Explorer to restore files, that way we can copy the files directly to a file share on the target server.

Any ideas why we don't see that mount in Windows Explorer? (In the VEEAM Backup and Replication console we see during File Level Recory a F drive..., but that F drive is not visible outside VEEAM)

[Alexey D.]

Hello Joris,

Could you please navigate to Computer Management -> Disk Management and check whether the volume is listed there? It could happen that Windows just didn't assign a drive letter to that volume.

[Gostev]

Hi,

1. Could it be that you are not using file level restore for Windows, but instead of "Other OS" (one that uses helper appliance)? In that case, no drive appearing under My Computer is expected.

2. Also, another idea - may be you have automount disabled on you backup server, I wonder if this may be causing drive not appearing?

Thanks.

[grauwej]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply. We were definitely using the FLR for windows. Where can we enable automount in W2K8 R2?

[Gostev]

You do this with diskpart, Google or search this forum... just make sure you do not have VMFS LUNs connected to your backup server for direct SAN access backup mode.

[grauwej]

After enabling automount we ended up with the complete alphabet in our Windows Explorer. All VMware luns that have to be visible by Veeam (and we have a lot of them) got a letter...

I guess the only way around would be to manually assign a drive letter, but I had a look through the complete list of volumes, I didn't recognize the FLR drive. (FLR was active when I was searching)

[Gostev]

After enabling automount we ended up with the complete alphabet in our Windows Explorer. All VMware luns that have to be visible by Veeam (and we have a lot of them) got a letter...

Uh, you have probably screwed up all your VMFS LUNs then. Unless they were presented to backup server as read-only...

[grauwej]

Fortunately automount doesn't initialize the LUNs, so no problem for the VMFS volumes

[Gostev]

It depends
VCB: I forgot all about “automount disable” what now?