Host-based backup of VMware vSphere VMs.
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Dark-Sider
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P2V with Instant Recovery and Quick Migration - Disk Format

Post by Dark-Sider »

Hi,

I have a veeam backup of a physical Machine (16 TB) with 3 disks total. I mounted the backup via Instant Recovery to my ESXi host and the chose "quick migration" to move it over to the local Datastore. Since the Server was mostly empty (~33% of the NTFS file System was used), I was happy to read in the documentation:
By default, Veeam Backup & Replication saves disks of relocated VMs in the thin format. If necessary, you can change the disk format. For example, if the original VM uses thick disks, you can change the disk format of the relocated VM to thin provisioned and save on disk space required to store VM data.
Disk format change is available only for VMs using virtual hardware version 7 or later.

To change VM disk format:

Click the Pick datastore for selected virtual disks link.
In the Choose VM Files Location window, click Add VM on the right and select the VM whose disk format you want to change.
Select the added VM in the list and click Disk type at the bottom of the window.
In the Disk Type Settings section, choose the format that will be used to restore VM disk files: same as the source disk, thin or thick.
However, as I just started the migration I noticed that the migrated VM also contains -flat.vmdks. Shouldn't thin provisioned vmdks have a different on disk structure? The documention (or more specific the UI) is a bit ambigious when it comes to changing the disk layout. In the step where I woul dclick "Pick datastore", doing so opens a window with all the VMs registred on the target host. There is also the "Instant Recovered" VM present. If I would use this menu to change around the disk type, would I add the source VM and select the correct disk-layout for each disk? Why does it display VMs that are not even part of my migration? Seems a bit unintuitive tbh.
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