Veeam Backup & Windows File Copy

[jzetterman]

I have tried copying my Veeam backup folder to an external hard drive through Windows File Copy, but every time I try to restore from it I get an error stating the metadata is corrupt. The transfer itself is always successful and I have even tried a brand new drive. The file sizes are the same byte for byte. I am copying the .vbm as well as the full backups and the incrementals.

Should I be able to copy my backups through Windows or is this only supported by creating a backup copy job in Veeam?

[Gostev]

You can copy the backups either way, however please note that what is causing issues in you case is most likely data corruption on source or target backup storage.

[jzetterman]

Thank you for the response. This is my first time working with Veeam, so I wasn't sure. I have already removed all of the backups and deleted them from the disk and started fresh, but I'm still getting the corrupt metadata so I guess I'll run a chkdsk on the volumes of my MD3000.

[Gostev]

Storage controllers might be misbehaving.

Backing up locally to a Veeam server is usually the easiest test to confirm this issue is related to storage, and not something else. Create two backup jobs with the same small VM, and point one to the default repository on Veeam server, and another one to your primary backup storage. Then, try to restore VM files from both backups to some temporary location and see if the restore completes successfully (restore process validates each restored block against the checksum).