ESXi copy a VM for a backup

[NZSewell]

Hi

With ESXi 3.5 and 4, how would you go about copying a VM so that you had a backup, should you lose the original VM thru host failure/disk failure etc...

Althrough we backup the guest VMs from within their Windows Enviroment, It would be good to have a copy of the complete system, as a VM so should it fail it can be copied to another ESXi server and then started up.

Under VMWare server, you had the abillity to just copy the files from one location to another, is the same sort of thing possible with ESX?

Thanks

Dave

[AntonVZhbankov]

Actually there are many Backup solutions for ESX(i) VMs, from free to expensive and full of features like Veeam Backup.

The only problem - Free ESXi is not supported now by commercial solutions.

There is integrated VMware backup solution in VMware Essentials Plus package called Data Recovery.

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VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[JamesClark]

use Ghettovcb script to backup your ESXi based guests in the entirety.

Ive been using it for a few weeks now, works great, does what it says on the tin.

http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vi;jsessionid=B25D1B552F97B463DE95F813BC9B3ED7

Perry.

[bulletprooffool]

Several easy options . . .I'll provide the free ones.

1) Use the datastore browser to copy the files (slow - but you have it already)

2) FastSCP by Veeamm (easy and free)

3) GhettoBackup scripts mentioned above (scriptable)

[NZSewell]

Hmmm... FastSCP is by far the easiest to use, but again you have to powerdown the VM. Going the snapshot route fixes this issue, but I don't know which files to leave (with the exception of the delta file) and how to remove the references to the snapshot in copied files. Any help here would be great.

thanks

[Troy_Clavell]

as mentioned, take a look at