Restore only non existing files

[jazzoberoi]

+1

[67Robbo]

+1 for adding the ability to restore on deleted files please

[McPu]

+1

We too were hit by the .odin ransomware about 10 days ago. 200k crypted files on our file server. Using a third party tool I located the changed, not "*.odin" named files and copied them over to a non affected partition. Afterwards i restored the full vmdk file and copied back the changed files manually. Thank god it were only about 50 files.

Anyway this would have been much easier having the "restore only missing files" available!

[cmorice]

Hello,

I also request a restore option that would restore only files that are “missing”.

Regards.

[janezk]

would be a very useful feature, that would help reduce the RTPO drastically (from several hours towards advertised numbers )

[postmaal]

+1 The time saved from this feature would be huge.

[HolgerE]

+1
I didn't need this feature of "restore only missing files" in the past. But I would appreciate to have this option in the case I need it. There are situations where this feature could be valuable.

[yasuda]

If it was, we would probably hear this request more than once in 8 years

Gostev,

I think that is because ransomware is a recent phenomenon. Previously the need to restore stemmed from a drive failure, or a need to roll back changes or deletions. Neither would result in most or all files of limited types (user data, mainly) being corrupted across the entire file system.

We're not seeing signs of ransomware going away, and recovery is a slow, painful process. Not just Veeam; Barracuda Backup and Windows Server Backup are no better. Some good work arounds were presented (I especially like the one about using instant recovery to present the backup as a disk), but it would be really great if Veeam could do that with a FLR option.

Ransomware is by far the leading reason for the file restores we have to do.

[ETJ]

+1. We've had to go through this process twice now due to CryptoLocker incidents. We leveraged RoboCopy with the Veeam FLR folder given Veeam's inability to perform such a restore through its current integrated functionalities. Hopefully, this will grab the right attention and is a function that will be integrated sooner rather than later.

[Trent]

+1 for restoring missing files

[sanderve]

Today we suffered from a ransomware outbreak. as files get encrypted and renamed to another file extension the most easy way to restore is to restore files to the original location with an option to not overwrite existing files.
This however, is not an existing option in Veeam B&R.
I can only choose to restore to a folder called RESTORED-foldername. This option is not suitable as is fills up disk space.
Veeam support told me to go to the VeeamFLR folder and copy the files from there by means of the Windows explorer. This also is not a very pretty solution in this case.

Can you please insert an option "Skip existing files" ASAP?

[fhoffmann]

Dear Veeam developers,
we also wish you please insert an option "Skip existing files" recursively in VeeamFLR.

I think you got enough NEEDS as input and if implemented even more thankful customers in the near future, since this is an increasing risk due to rising ransomeware hits.
I guess it's not a matter of IF, but only a matter of WHEN one will struggle into this restore scenario.

And keep hands on heart: it should be NOT that difficult to implement, is It?
I guess not , looking back on what challanges Veeam has taken in the last years.
So, please don't hesitate, go ahead.

Thanks for listening.

[NetAdMBC]

Definitely need this option - "restore only missing." I'm trying to do it right now (because of a ransomware infection) and the workarounds are cumbersome - both in Endpoint Backup and in B&R9.

[gooey]

+1

[lowlander]

10 votes for this feature request : "skip existing files"

Regarding ransomware : what if the infected file get encrypted without changing the name of the file. It would be nice if we can restore based on an access/time stamp of files.

Also be informed that in Veeam One 9.5 a new alarm is available : Possible ransomware activity. With this alarm Veeam ONE looks for high write rates on datastores along with high CPU Usage.

thanks !

[dweide]

+1 vote for this request!

[brett.hopkins]

If it was, we would probably hear this request more than once in 8 years

I am also surprised this isn't a feature. I have used it many times in backup exec. Hasn't been a huge deal yet in Veeam for us, as our file servers are still stuck on backup exec for the time being. I am in the middle of "copying" 18369 pdf's when 18325 files will be skipped. Thank goodness this is a new server and it calculates all this up front instead of per file

[dgrambo]

If it was, we would probably hear this request more than once in 8 years

Whatever. No one believes that. There are several pages right here on this thread alone!

Of course, there should be an option to restore only missing files. This is true of any enterprise recovery environment.

If you suggest to restore ALL DATA to a secondary location and then figure out how to select and move the data yourself (which I just did btw, shout out to ViceVersa Pro) then sorry VEEAM, but thats not enterprise level.

We paid for an enterprise level solution and so naturally we expected one.

[jmmarton]

Quick note about current capabilities: there's no need to restore everything to an alternate location. Once you kick off FLR for a particular VM, all the volumes are mounted locally under C:\VeeamFLR, with a folder created underneath that location for the VM. At that point it's still up to you to then script copying everything that's missing. Robocopy should be able to do this, or possibly even xcopy with the /d switch. Yes, it's a workaround, but the main point here is that you do not need to restore everything first.

Joe

[WRS2200]

When using robocopy make sure you don't forget to specify how many retries. The default for this switch is 1 million retries on failed copy actions.

[bhagen]

I'm wondering if there's such thing as an "incremental restore"?

Say I restore a folder from a good backup to a separate drive, then continue to backup the original folder. Something changes in the original folder and gets backed up. If I then restore *that* backup over the top of the folder I restored to the seperate drive, will I restore only the changes? Or the entire folder?

Here's the "long" version, with the actual scenario I'm looking at.

ServerA is a Windows 2008 VM on a VMWare 5.1 host. Within Windows 2008, an iscsi connection was made to a NAS and the storage there is now the N: drive within ServerA. (Yes, that's real. Rather than attaching the NAS to the ESXi host as external storage, it was done this way. It was long ago, before we were experts. ) Files on the N: drive take up about 5Tb of space.

Not only does VBR *not* backup iscsi attached drives, but that NAS is old and needs to be retired. (Veeam agent for windows backs up iscsi attached drives, but that's not a long term solution.)

So I'm spinning up a new wizbang VMWare 6.0U3 datacenter stack with gobs of VSAN space and moving servers to it. I of course want to move ServerA to the new datacenter and VSAN, and move everything from the iscsi NAS space to a VMDK on that VSAN.

I can only have the N: drive "down" for a night, or maybe a weekend.

So here's my thought on how to accomplish this:

1. Backup the N: drive via Veeam Agent for Windows
2. Restore that backup to a VMDK on the new VSAN
3. Rename the N: drive to Z:
4. Attach the restored VMDK to ServerA and assign it to N:
5. Profit

Problems with this scenario:
Step 2 is going to take about 3 days, maybe more. In the mean time, folks are still busily using the N: drive. It can't be down for the amount of time it will take to restore it to a VMDK. How am I going to capture the changed files?

Incremental Restore??

While the restore (N: drive to a vmdk, taking about 3 days) is happening, I'm still doing Agent backups on that N: drive and capturing the incrementals. This only takes an average of 45 minutes.
Once the restore is complete, I'm hoping I can:
1. Mount the VMDK to ServerA and give it a drive letter; say Y:
2. Kick everybody off the N: drive for the evening.
3. Do one last incremental.
4. Then restore *that* incremental to the Y: drive.
5. Change drive letters
6. Profit

Questions:
If I do this, will I only be restoring the delta files? Will it only take as long as restoring the changed files? Or is Veeam going to restore the *entire* 5TB again, taking another 3 days?

My apologies for the wall of text, but this is the scenario we're in, and I need to find a solution.

Thanks for your help!

[bhagen]

Wait...this seriously just got moved into a 2 year old feature request thread??? And the feature hasn't been implemented??

Well played, Veeam...well played.

Not.

[einhirn]

Hello bhagen,

So I'm spinning up a new wizbang VMWare 6.0U3 datacenter stack with gobs of VSAN space and moving servers to it. I of course want to move ServerA to the new datacenter and VSAN, and move everything from the iscsi NAS space to a VMDK on that VSAN.

I can only have the N: drive "down" for a night, or maybe a weekend.

why not do it without having the "N:" drive "down" at all: Use Windows's own "Disk Mirror" feature.

Have "ServerA" moved to the new Datacenter, with the iSCSI mount working like before.
Add a new VMDK disk to the Server as the new Space. Do not create a partition on it yet.
Open Windows Disk Manager and right-click "Add Mirror" on the iSCSI mounted Volume ("N:").
Select the new Disk as a Target (it should be offered).

It will probably warn you that it'll convert both drives into "Dynamic Disk"s, but that didn't have any impacted for me before.

Now Windows will start to block-wise mirror the drive, this will take quite some time for the size you mentioned.

When the initial mirroring is finished, you can remove the old, iSCSI-mounted drive from the mirror. I have done this multiple times to move data off some RDM-LUNs when we moved off of our FC-SAN. It still is the go-to method for me when I have to reduce the size of a VMDK-based disk in Windows - shrink volume, add new vmdk with reduced size, mirror, remove oversized VMDK.

Hope that helps! If there are any questions, just ask - I'll gladly try to help.

[Sicey26]

+1 for skip existing file feature in FLR

Having exactly the same issue as many people here re. mass FLR. Why is it taking so long to come out with an FLR overhaul when many people are all requesting the same thing ? Don't get me wrong I love Veeam but in this particular case the application is severely lacking. To be told to use workarounds and keep with that answer for a number of years is I'm afraid putting you in the same mould as your competitors..the same people we moved from because of that sort of stance/attitude. Please listen to what we're all saying here rather than giving us stuff that you think we'd want.

[theta12]

+1 for me as well. As much as I was glad to get rid of Avamar, it's restore options were much more robust. If i had to do a restore, you get the options 'Restore to original location, Restore to Different location, Restore to Multiple locations". Then you had additional options for overwrite settings: Overwrite existing files "Never, Always, Generate New Name, if Modified or If Newer". These simple options would allow you to do exactly what everyone here wants to do (for the most part). Veeam is severely lacking in this functionality and we keep having to revert to Windows, robocopy or some other tool to make this work.

[jazzoberoi]

+1 for skip existing file feature in FLR

Having exactly the same issue as many people here re. mass FLR. Why is it taking so long to come out with an FLR overhaul when many people are all requesting the same thing ? Don't get me wrong I love Veeam but in this particular case the application is severely lacking. To be told to use workarounds and keep with that answer for a number of years is I'm afraid putting you in the same mould as your competitors..the same people we moved from because of that sort of stance/attitude. Please listen to what we're all saying here rather than giving us stuff that you think we'd want.

+1 to everything said above !

[edirschedl]

+1 for me as well. As much as I was glad to get rid of Avamar, it's restore options were much more robust. If i had to do a restore, you get the options 'Restore to original location, Restore to Different location, Restore to Multiple locations". Then you had additional options for overwrite settings: Overwrite existing files "Never, Always, Generate New Name, if Modified or If Newer". These simple options would allow you to do exactly what everyone here wants to do (for the most part). Veeam is severely lacking in this functionality and we keep having to revert to Windows, robocopy or some other tool to make this work.

+1 from me. Beside VEEAM I'm using EMC Networker. The Networker Client isn't perfect but in comparison there are a lot of useful restore options, it's more stable and the general performance of a single file restore is hugely better. I hope VEEAM recognizes that FLR in general needs some improvements in the future...

[Didi7]

And I recognize this thread is already more than 3 years old and nothing has changed or been added to the restore options in Veeam FLR File Explorer since I first started with Veeam B&R 7.0 in 2014.

Possible conclusion of Veeam:
Not enough customers requested changes or additions to restore options of FLR in Veeam File Explorer.

Might it be added to VBR 9.5 U3a or later or never? Who knows! Considering what has happened since feature additions to the VBR FLR restore options have been requested in this thread since ages, I wouldn‘t count on anything happening or changing in the forseeable future.

But, I may be wrong. We will see in a year.

Regards,
Didi7

[foggy]

Possible conclusion of Veeam:
Not enough customers requested changes or additions to restore options of FLR in Veeam File Explorer.

And/Or "there are other features with more value to the product in the queue".

[ben.laroche]

And/Or "there are other features with more value to the product in the queue".

Does that mean that the issue could be in the queue? Would be exciting if it at least had existence in the 'queue'. Thank you.