How can I backup and restore a VM minus one of the virtual disks?

[IT_Architect]

How can I backup and restore a VM minus one of the virtual disks?

My plan is to have two ESXi 4 servers cross backup to each other's SATA drive using ghettoVCB and running Starwind iSCSI on a WIndows VM on each. The Windows VM has two virtual disks, one on the array for the OS and software, and the other on the SATA drive to serve as a target for the backups. However, there is a "fly in the ointment". When I backup the Windows iSCSI VM to the opposite server, I do NOT want the iSCSI target vmdk from the SATA disk since that would be simply bringing a copy of the backup files back to the server they came from. If I lost the entire SATA on either or both servers, it would make no difference to the running of the production VMs. The only effect would be the loss of the backups for the opposite server. My thought is if I ever needed to restore the Windows VM, I would use the vSphere client to delete the second virtual drive, and recreate it before starting it. My questions are:

1. Can I get a live backup like that, e.g. snapshot and then using the vmkfstools backup the array .vmx + .vmdk + a thin copy of the flat.vmdk without getting the other .vmdk from the SATA?

2. Would the restore method I outlined work?

Thanks!

[RParker]

I think there are issues with this. Vizioncore is the only one I have seen that designates which vmdk file is to be backed up easily, separate from the rest of the job. Now maybe there is a work around, but with some other backup products, it's more difficult to do, since they usually treat the VM as a sum of its parts.

I haven't tried VDR with 2 vmdk's, but a snapshot takes into the account the entire VM, no sure how that would even work, if you mark a drive as persistent will snapshot ignore the dirve with errors and snapshot the VM (drives) anyway? If so then it may be as simple as that, just select the drive, mark it as persistent (no snapshots) and from then on you might get errors but those drives should be ignored.

[dconvery]

You can do it with VCB - assuming you have the non-free version of ESXi. -> http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/jturver/2008/01/24/vcb-how-to-backup-a-selected-specific-disk-or...

Also, check out my guide -> http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1392

Dave Convery

VMware vExpert 2009

http://www.dailyhypervisor.com

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

[IT_Architect]

I've had to do it several times now because of backups crashing while attempting to use Starwinder for an iscsi target for backups.(Input/output

error (327689)) Basically, all you need to do is copy the main vmdk. It will get the flat file for that vmdk, but it does NOT automatically pull the other volumes, which is exactly the behavior I wanted anyway. Then, if you need to restore this backup to a usable VM, before you start it, go into settings for the VM, delete the secondary drive, and create a new one if needed. It works perfectly every time with no residual issues.

Thanks!

[gaya3kl]

If you do not want the second vmdk to be snapshotted and considered for backup, then you can probably make the disk independent.

With this, only the first disk can get backed up and restored.