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DavidinCT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Put new, larger drives in a VM server (backup and restore)

Hi,

We have 4 VMs running on ESXi 5.0 right now on a DL380g5. All is good. The problem is, space is at a premium on this server, it's been this way for a while. So this week, we ordered and they came in larger drives for this machine. ESXi runs off the internal drive.

The VMs are backed up 2-3 times a week(with Acronis) but, I wanted to see if I can shut them down, move them to a temp location from the datastore (say a USB 3.0 drive), replace the drives, setup the raid, etc, then install ESXi 5.5, then move the VMs from a usb drive to the new data store. The VMs will NEVER be run or turned on via this USB drive (just temp storage)

I was wondering, what is the best way to do this ?

Would it be better to upgrade 5.0 to 5.5 and then just backup my ESXi config to restore on the new drives after the reinstall, if so, how do I do this?

What is the best way to get these VMs off onto a USB drive ?

Trying to do this with a minimum down time if possible. Changing the drives/raid should only take a 1/2 hour max and installing ESXi should not take more than that, just wondering what is the BEST method to do this with out any other software packages.

Thanks in advance !!!

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vervoortjurgen
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im assuming you dont have any more slots to put in the new disk and create an new RAID and boot from that RAID?

just an idea but why not use a temp iSCSI device?

connect to your current host. storage vmotion to iSCSI datastore

disconnect it

and just completly do scratch installation on new disk

connect iSCSI device again and datastore.

connect to the vms's and move them to local datastore

i wont use USB disk as datastore. to slow i think.

kind regards Vervoort Jurgen VCP6-DCV, VCP-cloud http://www.vdssystems.be
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DavidinCT
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I don't have a extra SCSI device sitting around that I can use for this. All the drives in the server are being replaced. There is only one VM server, so I cant just move them to another VM server.

What I am looking for is a temp location to drop the VMs in their current state (once they are shut down)pulled directly from the datastore, while I replace the drives in the server, then once the new drives are in(Raid is setup), install ESX, then move the VMs back to the new drive. At no point will these servers run off a USB drive, the thought was to use it as a temp location to HOLD the servers while the drive change is happening.

When I connect the USB external drive, It does not show as a datastore, is it possible to add it as a temp location ? If so, how ?

This is ESX 5.0 that the system is running....

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vervoortjurgen
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so far i cant find any good way and dont tink its very stable or supported

read this, maybe will help you

External USB hard drive detected as SCSI by ESXi, but can it be used for anything?

like i said, i would buy a cheap iSCSI disk.(iomega, qnap,...) you dont need second server. just connect iSCSI and move vm's to that iSCSI datastore

then you can upgrade your disks and esx host

or backup your vm's with a program or vmware convertor to V2V to image

kind regards Vervoort Jurgen VCP6-DCV, VCP-cloud http://www.vdssystems.be
JarryG
Expert
Expert

I do not know how big your VMs are and what is your network-infrastructure, but you could also simply shut all VMs down, download all VM-files to your management-workstation (using datastore-browser of vSphere-client), reconfigure ESXi-server, and upload VM-files back. I did this some time ago, but my VMs were relatively small (iirc, ~600GB took about 3 hours to copy for me)...

Or you could create nfs-server on your management workstations (with freenfs or any other tool), mount it on EXSi and use it as backup-datastore (it is said to be faster than copying files with datastore-browser).

_____________________________________________ If you found my answer useful please do *not* mark it as "correct" or "helpful". It is hard to pretend being noob with all those points! :winking_face:
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DavidinCT
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I wish there was an easier way to do this. I just want to move the VMs off of the server as replacing the drives will wipe everything out. Put in new drives, rebuild ESX and put the VMs back.

I'll do a test on one of the VMs I will power off and see if I can copy all the files to a Windows machine....then put them back after the new drive.

Just wondering, If I can do this, is there a way to backup the config (so the VMs come up with the same network cards, with no changes like before. IS there some config files I can download from the data store where I can just drop them back on when I rebuild ?

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DavidinCT
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Is there a FREE software package that I can backup the WHOLE VM server, ESXi and all the hosts(after they are powered off) ?

Figure I could backup the whole server to a USB flash drive (the data store on the VM server is 288gb, I have a 500gb USB 3.0 drive), then replace the drives, then just restore the whole VM server. Would this work ?

Could acronis server backup do this with a sector by sector copy(we use acronis for server backup) ?

Tried to copy a VM off over the network, a 51gb VM took about a 1/2 hour to download but, it took almost 2 hours to upload back (testing a non major vm), with the VMs on here, I could see this taking 8 hours or so, too long. Trying to directly connect with a machine to see if that helps things...

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vervoortjurgen
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veeam backup free edition can backup your vm's

pretty fast and easy program.

acronis could backup too i think but no experience in that

kind regards Vervoort Jurgen VCP6-DCV, VCP-cloud http://www.vdssystems.be
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DavidinCT
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I'm looking to backup the WHOLE server (esxi, hosts, vms, etc), not just the VMs will Veem do that ?

Will Veem do them in a powered off state ?

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vervoortjurgen
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no veeam only backups the vm's

not the esxi host itself or the config

kind regards Vervoort Jurgen VCP6-DCV, VCP-cloud http://www.vdssystems.be
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DavidinCT
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OK, that kind of defeats the point that I am trying to do, dam, no easy option.

The AD is on this server and some critical services run on it, so I need to shut them all down, back them up, then when on the new drive, start them all up, so they don't go out of sync... If I back them up, one by one while they are on, they will be at different states and can cause major havoc.

Thanks for your help, I'll look at seeing if I can get a USB drive to work from the link above...If that will work, I should get these servers off in the performance that I need.

If you have any other thoughts, let me know and again, thanks for your help.

Edit: Ya, going a direct 1gb connection from the VM server to a management station resulted in 25 min to download the image and over an hour and 1/2 to transfer it back. This will take too long with too much down time. I need to find another option but, need to do this soon.

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DavidinCT
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OK, Did some tests with a less critical server, This VM is 50.5gb (2008 r2 X64 server). Trying to find out what will take the least amont time, This Vm server has 4 VMs on it, all ranging from 25gb to 80gb. I need to get this project done ASAP with as little downtime as possible (looks like I will have to do it over a weekend. Each of these servers are running of of space so this project is getting critical.

I tried to get a USB drive to detect as a iSCSI device and it did not, after doing a few tests, I could not get it to work.

These were all with the VM powered off.

1. Connected the VM server directly to the Admin station (used a spare network port on the server, direct to the PC) over gigabit lan. This resulted in about 25-30 min to download the image directly from browsing the datastore and downloading folder, To put back, it took almost 2 hours.

2. Created a new VM (WIn7 x32), Installed vSpear client on it, did the same thing above to a USB 3.0 drive (copying it directly to the USB drive), this resulted on WORSE performance and after about an hour downloading, it failed. One would think going VM to VM would be faster but, I guess not.

3. Powered off the VM, used a boot-able ISO of Acronis server 11.5 that I booted with. Did a full backup, took about 22 min to backup to the same USB 3.0 drive as above. Rebooted and did a restore (it removed the partitions before restoring). this took 28min to restore.

It looks like in a time matter, doing a backup to USB via Acronis is the best way. I did find out (this was copying the VM out, deleting it and creating a new VM using the drive from the VM), if I copied the MAC address of the card and used the SAME model network card, I did not have to reconfigure the network cards (kept it's static IP and other settings, a big time saver as the server just booted up and was ready to go)

With a few USB drives, assigned to different servers, I could possibly do more than one at a time...(another time saver)

I really would think that there would be an EASIER and QUICKER way to do this, besides buying new hardware, is there a method I should try here that might result in better(quicker removal and restore) performance  ?

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gregsn
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I've always found downloading/uploading using the vSphere client to be really slow for some reason.  For higher speed copying, I've found Veeam FastSCP to be much quicker (up to 100MB/s on a gigabit connection).VMware ESX / ESXi file Management - Veeam FastSCP 3.0

Edit:

You might want to do a speed test to your USB drive to see what it's capable of.  I've also found USB through a virtual machine to be slower than to a physical computer.

DavidinCT
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I've been looking at Veem, The 2 things I cant figure out, can it do it when the VM is powered off and will it completely restore all the VM settings if it's going to a new install ? I might install it to do a test on a workstation on the network.

Yea, USB drive performance is questionable sometimes via VMware, wish for better performance but, cant see it. I guess in the mix of things, If I can backup and restore a 50gb server in less than 35-40 min, after looking at the OTHER options here, it's pretty reasonable.

These are USB 3.0 hard drives, on a USB 3.0 port on a desktop (the server is USB 2.0) I can run a full OS off it with really good performance, something I could never do over a USB 2.0 drive.

Edit: Tried VeemZip. Did a backup of this "test" server (no data is really changing on it so) **with it powered off**, this took about 25 min to backup over my lan (1 switch in-between) got about 55mb/s backing up, acceptable. (I had a backup of this server done last night) so I went into Vspear and deleted the VM, refreshed storage, checked the datastore to confirm it was 100% gone. Then did a restore.

The restore only went about 15-18mb/s (need to see if I can work around this to get it better) took about an hour. It restored the WHOLE VM with all it's settings and Network cards, etc. Very nice.

The ONLY problem here is the restore took almost an hour, between the 2 (backup and restore), it took almost an hour and 1/2.  Booting the VM with a ISO (with Acronis) took about 45 min for both from a USB drive on the VM server.

If I restore to a new machine is it going to Nuke the network cards or will it ask me when I am restoring what network I want them on ?

Message was edited by: DavidinCT

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DavidinCT
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WOw, thanks for the sales pitch... No thanks.

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