File server backup plus its shared files?

[PBGBob]

I am quite new to Veeam so please be gentle.

I am setting up our first Veeam install and am looking to back up a VM file server. The VM is Windows 2008 R2 on an ESXi 5 Vmware host. Connects to the san via fiber. San is for VM OSes and Files, with a CIFS file share for the backup repository. We are using 890GB of files store out of the 2.0TB available. I am curious if one backs up the VM AND the files that are shared to the network using Veeam?

I know it sounds basic, but I am not sure if that is how the backup is accomplished.

Thanks.
Bob

[foggy]

Bob, could you please clarify regarding your setup a bit? Do you have everything stored on a single SAN (ESXi primary storage, backup repository, and file storage partition)? How is the file storage mounted to the file server VM?

[kjc3303]

Hi

Yes Veeam will backup the VM(OS) and the Files (assuming its not a pRDM)

Couple of points

-From reading you post it looks like you are backing up to the same storage as you production storage - not good practice for obvious reasons lose the storage and you lose everything
-you may struggle to store any decent amount of backup history with the amount of free space you have
- you will have to allocate x amount of space to your backup repository which will limit the size your production can grow to.

I would recommend offloading you backups to different storage.

Kev



Kev

[PBGBob]

Thank you foggy and kev,

My apologies for not being clear; the SAN is for VM OS and the file storage. We have different hardware and separate network for the CIFS backup repository, so yes, the two are separate.

The file storage for the file server is mounted as a VMware virtual disk SCSI disk (is this what you need to know?). As for the backup repository, we have over 6TB free.

So, as I understand, I will be backing up the files as well as the VM. This is good, now to make it work; I am hitting an error : "Error: File <unspecified filename> is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore '<unspecified datastore>" which seems to be related to my backup repository block size, if I understand correctly.

Thanks
Bob

[foggy]

The file storage for the file server is mounted as a VMware virtual disk SCSI disk (is this what you need to know?).

Yes, that is what I was asking about, as disks connected via in-guest iSCSI initiator are not supported and are automatically skipped during VM processing (this is covered in the release notes). The only way to back such disks up is to mount them as vRDM.

I am hitting an error : "Error: File <unspecified filename> is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore '<unspecified datastore>" which seems to be related to my backup repository block size, if I understand correctly.

Not to backup repository but to the primary VMFS datastore block size. Please review this topic for details.

[PBGBob]

Foggy!

Thanks much, that clarifies things tremendously. I shall pass the links on to my VMware guy and we'll muddle through the backups yet!

Bob