test restore

[mrbiggles]

Trying to confirm test restores work.

Backing up 3 virtual servers to single VEEAM backp file through vcenter.
Backing up directly to a QNAP NAS
From there backing up to external hard disks.

Attempted a test restore with one of the resultant external disks back at our office.

Total time to restore was around 28 hours.
Incrementals failed (this is a concern)
Went back to the original full files & they restored.
Restored each server seperately into a spare ESXi server.

2 went OK
1 - the SBS 2008 server has been restored but we cannot login
using ctrl-alt-dlt the VM just sits there & we get no further
There are no outward signs that the VM has failed the restoration process other than we cannot login to it.

My questions
What would cause the incrementals to fail in the restoration attempts?
Is this the quickest way to restore from an external removable hard disk?
Has anyone got a hint on what might stop us logging into the SBS box and do we require to restore it again?

[Alexey D.]

Hello Adam,

Instant VM recovery would be the best option to use as it doesn't require to extract VM from backup and allows to run that VM directly from compressed and deduplicated backup file. Then you can use Storage vMotion/Replication/Copy jobs and move that VM to desired location. Please refer to this section of F.A.Q. and to User Guide (page 81) for more information.

Concerning your issue with SBS box. Actually, there is the SureBackup technology which was specifically designed to allow testing consistency of your backups (thus you would be able to notice that logging issue at early stage, for example). This link tells more about SureBackup, please read if you decide to adopt this process of verification.

On your question about incrementals, do you mean that you cannot restore from incremental points, only from full? If so, please contact our support team, they will take a look at your logs. They will try to help with your logging issue as well. Thanks!

[pcrebe]

Hello Adam,
the issue with SBS depends that it is a DC, so at the first boot, you can login with .\Administrator account and password the first you type during the first setup.
Anyway if you login you are in DSRM and it's performing a non-authoritative restore: if it is the only DC you have they'll be issues.
After many time (30 min) the sistem reboot again in normal mode and after the SYSVOL share will disappear.
If you'll try Surebackup set the timeout to 7200 and 480 because SBS is too slow to start.

Gostev you should analize better SBS2008 because some veem essentials buyers use it that can be the only DC.
Thank you