vdr incremental

[tdubb123]

What exactly does the vdr incremental backup do? I thought there was no incremental backups for vmdk files, its either the whole vm or nothing.

[a_p_]

The incremental backup only backs up the virtual disk's modified blocks since the last backup. With activated CBT (changed block tracking) the VMkernel keeps track of the modified blocks in a .ctk file (for each .vmdk file) which can be leveraged by VDR and other backup applications. As you can imagine, backing up only the changes will be a lot faster than backing up the whole virtual disk.

André

[tdubb123]

thanks. how can i restore individual files from this backup?

[a_p_]

I don't have VDR running, so you may need to check the manual for details. Anyway, any backup application which offers incremental (or differential) backups internally maintains the necessary information about the backup chain (e.g. full -> inc1 -> inc2 -> inc3). If you need to restore a file, the backup software is aware of the location of this file and you won't have to know in which incremental or full backup the latest changes of this file are stored.

André

[psplnalin123]

You could refer the VDR administration guide for your implemented VDR version guide also please find the video for the same

http://www.vladan.fr/vmware-data-recovery-part-3-restore-your-data/

[tdubb123]

what does thie mean?

" While backing up similar virtual machines to the same deduplication store may produce increased space-savings, the similar virtual machines do not need to be backed up using the same job. Deduplication is evaluated for all virtual machines stored, even if some are not currently being backed up"

This is from

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=/com.vmware.datarecovery.admin.doc_20/GUID-748CAB0...

I have a resource pool with 20+ vms all running xp. DO I need to backup each vm? I do need to restore the vm incase one fails.

How should I be backing these identical vms up?