Guest VM Windows 2012 Storage Spaces Support?

[Andreas Neufert]

I´m not from support, but I saw a statement at the code change request, that our support can repair the chain by editing some database entries.

[millahjovich]

Hey.!!

basically right now "Veeam is really behind on supporting this extremely useful new feature" based on the amount of requests for this feature (which is the only measurement of true importance for us). Besides, Storage Spaces have completely different purpose: they are designed to create a redundant storage out of JBODs for hypervisor to use. They are not meant to be used from within VMs. Out of curiosity, can you share your use case for using Storage Spaces within the VM? Thanks!

[Andreas Neufert]

Hi Millah, yes, this was the answer from one of our Produkt Managers.

Microsoft do not support storage spaces within a VM and so Veeam didn´t developed an enhancement for our File Level Recovery wizards. Over the years I am aware of only 2 requests within Central EMEA and both used it with Microsoft Applications which are not supported in any way on storage spaces (if in a VM or physical). If you use Storage Spaces for Backup Targets, Veeam can use them (CIFS/iSCSI Repository).

[Andreas Neufert]

Other than Deduplication, Dyn Disks and others, Storage Spaces volumes are not detected on the fly by windows. A manual import process needs to be done and based on a dicussion with some MS guys these can not be mounted "only" to Win FLR. So pretty much not on the fly compatible with our WinFLR process. As Microsoft do not support these configurations (Storage Spaces within a VM) and the very limited feedback from our customer base, I think adding this would be wasted ressources at DEV/QA team. In that time they can develop other cool stuff that helps all of us.

[jonhocut]

Gostev,

It's a darned shame that this isn't something that works with FLR. We have been using storage spaces for years in order to leverage tiered storage. We create some small vmdks on our faster storage and mark them as SSDs in storage spaces and create large vmdks on our bulk storage and mark them as HDDs. Windows 2012 R2 then does a great job sorting based on access and a high percentage of the files that get touched end up being on the fast disk. All this on totally commodity HP MSA storage.

The fact that it isn't supported by Microsoft sounds like FUD to me. They support it just fine in Azure and I sincerely doubt they're installing physical disks there. Or maybe I'm just grumpy because I recently rebuilt two file servers to be Veeam-compatible and now that I see this I get to go rebuild them again...

[ChuckS42]

Just stumbled across this. Very disappointed that Storage Spaces are not supported in FLR. I see there are reasons, but y'all are smart and can figure them out. Our use case was to aggregate one volume across several VMDK files for (alleged) performance reasons. The instant-VM-restore route will be a major PITA. Very disappointed.

[getontoit99]

While evaluating Veeam Backup and Recovery to replace Azure Backup Server for VM backups, we have just run into this issue.

We'd like to recover files from our file server VM backups (created with VeeamB&R), but the D: drive in the VM is a Storage Spaces volume. This was done deliberately to get around the limitation in Azure Site Recovery that requires disks (.VHD/.VHDX) in replicated VMs to be no larger than 1TB. Yes, we replicate this VM to Azure Site Recovery for DR purposes, as well as back it up with Veeam.

Veeam has made a point of stating that Microsoft says Storage Spaces aren't supported in VMs, but they are supported in Azure VMs. That contradiction hurts my head...but as Veeam doesn't support FLR from Storage Spaces volumes, it looks like VBR won't fit our needs and we'll have to look elsewhere.

Starting up a copy of the VM just to get a file out is cumbersome and slow; a pain down and round the back as someone already said.

[getontoit99]

Hoping PTide is still watching this thread and acknowledging that post was a long time ago...

Our Veeam server is the same version of Windows (Windows Server 2012R2) as the VM with Storage Spaces we are trying to recover files from. Still can't see the Storage Spaces volume in the VM. And doing a so-called Instant Recovery of the VM to get a single file out is too much work.

[foggy]

In his post above Pavel stated that having backup server running the same OS version as the VM might allow you to import Storage Spaces there, prior to performing FLR. Have you tried that?

[billeuze]

I know this is an old thread. It is one I was looking at as I was setting up my server 2016 VM with Storage Spaces.

So to update everyone else, I posted in the following thread: https://forums.veeam.com/post276433.html#p276433

Many of the issues with backing up from and restoring to Storage Spaces have been addressed by now (Veeam B&R ver 9.5). File level restore works

[PTide]

Hello everyone

I want to confirm one more time:

The statement: "Storage Spaces volumes are not supported for file level recovery."

still holds true for 9.5 U3, despite the fact that Storage Spaces FLR might even work in some cases.

Thank you

[jnap]

Hi,

The main reason why you cannot perform an FLR from Storage Spaces Volume is that volumes from backup are mounted on backup server thus if your Veeam Server is not of the same Windows version as the VM being restored then it won't recognize the Storage Spaces file system, just like with HDDs that used to be behind RAID controller. The Instant-Recovery workaround is the way to go, indeed, and it's documented in our KB. Another way would be to have backup server with the same version of Windows as in VM and try to import Storage Spaces there, which is not convenient because you cannot have a separate backup server for all versions of Storage Spaces.

So, I agree with you that some sort of check should have been implemented in order to warn user about the difficulties described. Your post has been considered as a feature request, hopefully this will be addressed in future release.

Thanks for heads up!

Hello
Now, with veeam 9.5u4b or 10, is it still a problem?
I have windows storage space into a windows 2012R2 and one of the disk does not appear with FLR ...

[Gostev]

Yes, no changes there.

[jnap]

Ok thanks!
As a workaround using a veeam agent can be also an idea to restore easily files?

[Gostev]

What workaround are you talking about?

[jnap]

Can it be a "workaround" to use veeam agent to restore files as easily as flr ?

[PTide]

@jnap,

Windows Agent cannot perform FLR from VM backups.

Thanks!

[jnap]

yes but with agent restore we can easily browse files we want to restore, can't we?

[PTide]

Agent can browse only agent backups, it cannot browse VM backups.

Thanks!

[jnap]

yes of course you have to replace first vm backup or to add agent backup.