Esxi 7.0

[scherian]

Using Veeam B&R community edition
Successfully tried restoring a VM from host 1 to host 2
Veeam backups are on a 3rd device NAS
I thought the entire VM restore option would restore data from the backup to the host 2 (which it may have done)
However after restore was done, I noticed all VM files on host1 were deleted and were on host 2
Is that expected behavior? What if host 1 was inaccessible?
Veeam Support - Case # 05822142 - restore entire vm

[Regnor]

Are both hosts part of the same vCenter? If you restore the VM with the same name it will delete the original VM before doing the restore. In that case you should have received a warning which you needed to confirm.

[scherian]

yes both hosts are part of the same vCenter!. I did get a warning about duplicate name /folder
So to avoid deletion , i should rename the VM?.. would that just rename the folder but all the VM files/vmdks etc.. would carry the original name?
any other implications I should worry about if the VM names change?

[Regnor]

Yes, if you change the name of the restore VM during the restore process, Veeam will create a new VM instead of overwriting the existing one.
The datastore folder and VM configuration will reflect the new name. The disks will still have their original file name.