backup virtual machine

[dennis9999]

Running workstation version 10 on win10 host with 2 virtual guests. I have been suspending each host and copying their files to an external drive as a backup. If I lose the main guest files or they become corrupted can I start the suspended backups or do I need to shut them down and then do the backup.

Thanks for your help

Dennis

[vijayrana968]

Any specific reason you're copying those VMs as backup in suspended state. I am not sure if it will give any issue in Workstation but in vSphere surely I can say there are issue.  I would recommend to shutdown and take a consistent backup copy

[dennis9999]

I back them up in suspended state because its faster than shutting them down, backing them up and restarting them.

My apologies for a poorly worded question, what I really meant to ask is this:

Assume my host machine loses the root drive and has to be rebuilt from scratch including recreating the two virtual machines in workstation pro.

Can the two newly created virtual machines open an existing file in suspended state?

I would assume the newly created virtual machines need to have the exact same name as the suspended VMs

Any other things to look out for?

Dennis

[gimmely]

Assume my host machine loses the root drive and has to be rebuilt from scratch including recreating the two virtual machines in workstation pro

What do you mean here by "recreating the two virtual machines"?  How do you (plan to) recreate them?  What does this "recreate" have to do with the backups?

[dennis9999]

Gimmely:

In the event of a host system failure I would need to reinstall win10, reinstall vmware, open vmware workstation, click on "create a new virtual machine" and go through all the steps I used in the initial creation of these two guests. I guess the correct term is would be I would be cloning the two backed up guests. My question is would workstation have a problem opening a cloned guest if the actual guest operating system is in suspended state.

Thanks for your input.

Dennis

[dennis9999]

Gimmely:

Should have checked my grammar before posting.

In the event of a host system failure I would need to reinstall win10, reinstall vmware, open vmware workstation, click on "create a new virtual machine" and go through all the steps I used in the initial creation of these two guests. I guess the correct term is I would be cloning the two backed up guests. My question is would workstation have a problem opening a cloned guest if the actual guest operating system is in suspended state.

Thanks for your input.

Dennis

[gimmely]

I guess what's not clear to the others including myself is "why" you'd do as described or if you'd have some specific requirements or concerns.  In particular, why do you need to "create or re-create" a new virtual machine now that you already have backups?  In another word, how do you plan to use your backups?  Technically, you can copy the whole folder for any VM to another location as the backup process, instead of cloning, which is to satisfy some (other) specific needs.  After you have re-built your host - or, even change to a different host because the reason for this "change" is really irrelevant here - you can copy that whole folder back and should be able to start the VM right away.

[dennis9999]

Im just being a bit paranoid. The two guests are XP and Vista which run some business related legacy software that will not run on anything more modern, some of the data files go back to 2000.

Just wanted to double check keeping the guests backed up in suspend mode would not cause any recovery problems.

You have answered my questions, thanks for your help.

Dennis

[cyberpaul · Accepted solution]

Hi Dennis, I assume the question is in fact: If I have a copy of suspended VM as a backup, can I loose any data upon restore?

If you copy the VM including its state (.vmss file), the answer is no, you won't loose any data. If you ever need to restore, simply copy the VM from the external drive back to your host and you should be able to resume as you would normally do.

PS: You should definitely try this before you really need to 🙂 That's the only way to be sure and you'll know the exact procedure in case something bad happens.

[dennis9999]

Thank you Mr Paul that was my question and you along with all the other helpful forum members have answered it. I will take your advice and test it before assuming that method will work.

Dennis