Upgrade advice - Server 2012 to 2016

[Blue407]

I have a 2012 R2 server running Veeam 9.5 and latest patches. It has local HDD storage for both backups (40 days worth) and hyper-v replicas.

I plan to run the 2016 upgrade on this server and would like to make use of ReFS on the local drives.

Once I have upgraded to 2016, can I copy/migrate the existing repositories to a spare server, format the existing drives and the migrate the repositories or their contents back to make use of ReFS?

[Regnor]

In order to use the ReFS features you'll have to start a new backup chain with new (full) backups.

[Blue407]

Does this work with replication of hyper-v VM's?

Does it work with Backup Copy jobs?

Please confirm what you mean by new backup chain?

Thanks

[foggy]

Regnor means the Fast Clone technology available for ReFS volumes. For it to take effect on the new volume, you would need to perform an active full on all backup and backup copy jobs. This doesn't relate to replication jobs.

[Blue407]

Thank you

Just to confirm, this particular repository is on a new server. The original VM-s are first backed up to a server 2012 R2 repository and then a Backup Copy job copies it to the new ReFS repository. (Destined to be our off-site Repo)

Will this work, or will I have to upgrade the Server 2012 R2 server to 2016, format to ReFS and then do it?

[foggy]

This will work, different repositories can run on different OS's.

[Blue407]

I have already created a new Backup Copy job to this new Repo. Should it just work automatically then?

[foggy]

What do you mean by automatically? If everything is configured properly (source, interval, etc.) and the job is enabled - it should work.