Veeam Explorer Feature Request: Shadow Copies

[pigletjuggler]

I'll start by saying, I love Veeam. I love Veeam Explorer.

I've had a number of instances where clients need a file that is JUST beyond the reach of the restore point or in between the restore points in the GFS copy job resulting in me needing to QuickRestore the server in question without network attached, create and attach a temp transfer disk (TTD), use previous versions/shadow copies to copy the file to TTD, unmount TTD from QR VM, mount TTD on production VM, copy to desired location.

This also means I need enough room to pre-allocate the entire vdisk for what can sometimes be a few kilobytes of information.

If that sounds complicated and annoying to you... that's because it is. Maybe I'm just missing another avenue of accessing them. Suggestions are always welcome.

Can previous versions/shadow copies be made accessible via Veeam Explorer?

[Dima P.]

Hello Dan.

Thank you for your post. Indeed there is no way to browse previous versions via Veeam console or Veeam Explorer.

I've had a number of instances where clients need a file that is JUST beyond the reach of the restore point or in between the restore points in the GFS copy job resulting in me needing to QuickRestore the server in question without network attached, create and attach a temp transfer disk (TTD), use previous versions/shadow copies to copy the file to TTD, unmount TTD from QR VM, mount TTD on production VM, copy to desired location.

Have you considered setting up backup job to run more frequently?

[pigletjuggler]

That's the advice people used to give when there was no way to pull an individual file out of an image-based backup... just backup more often so you don't lose as much when you try to restore. haha

I could kill shadow copies and do that if Veeam allowed users the same convenient path to restore a file as Shadow Copies... but it doesn't. If I need to keep the user convenience of right clicking on a file and selecting a previous version, but also want more backup points, I'd need more space, which they're already tight on. (I really need that automatic archival tier that was mentioned for the mysterious v10 that has now been merged into updates to v9.X... don't get me started on stupid versioning practices these days).

Since the shadow copies are already there in the image, being able to get at them via the interface would make my life much easier. Depending on how the disk image is being mounted, it may not be that hard to implement.