Excluding the disk with the OS during replication?

[davidb1234]

I would like to replicate the E:\ of a windows VM that has changing flat files. I would like to skip the C:\ as we don't need to replicate changes to the OS and that would just increase job time. I would like to perform this replication hourly and be able to access a days worth of restore points(24 or so) if needed at the target location.

How would I access this replicated VMs data since I only replicated the E:\ drive and there is no Operating System to boot up? Can I attach the disk files to another VM at the target replication site to restore data? How do I go about doing that if there are many restore points? Any other ways to restore this data that I am not thinking of?

Just trying to think outside the box on how to accomplish this. Any help is appreciated. Perhaps I am going about this wrong and should be using the backup copy job + wan accelerator.

[veremin]

The granular guest data can be restored from replica VMs via Windows FLR or Other OS type of restore:

Go to the “Replicas” node -> right click necessary VM -> and perform whatever type of restore you want to.

Also, during restoration process you will be asked from what particular point you’re willing to restore granular guest data.

Though, such a scenario can be easily covered by using a backup job, instead. Also, it makes little sense to replicate a VM without a system disk, since if disaster happens, you won’t be able to failover/failback to a VM with system disk excluded. Thanks.

[foggy]

Moreover, with replication job you can have max 28 restore points, which is not sufficient if you need to keep several days of hourly restore points. So I'm also along the line that using backup job instead seems to be more reasonable.

[davidb1234]

If I wanted to take multiple backups during the day what backup method would be suggested. I only need to keep about 48 hours worth of data but I need many recovery points throughout the day. Would incremental, enable synthetic fulls every day, transport previous full, be correct?

[veremin]

There are several pros and cons in each scenario. Forward incremental is likely to be faster here, though, you will have to run a synthetic/active full backup from time to time (no transform is needed here). Reversed incremental might take a little longer, however, there won't be a need to perform an active full backup. Therefore, it’s always advisable to run several tests in order to determine what method answers best your requirements. Thanks.