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As we discussed here earlier, there are 3 transport modes to get data from vSphere for backup.

These modes are also available for restore. By default, first mode (order: SAN, Hotadd, NBD) that meet requirements, is selected for restore. For SAN direct mode, a requirement is thick provisioned disk type. You can select each available type (thin, thick eager and lazy zeroed) in restore wizard.

My recommendation: If you want to leverage SAN direct mode, choose Thick eager zeroed! This option is much faster than lazy zeroed!

I tested these settings in different environments. For example, I saw differences of

  • 67 % (150MB/sec for eager vs. 100MB/sec for lazy),
  • 93 % (226MB/sec for eager vs. 16MB/sec for lazy).

     

See here different wizards

  • VM restore
  • VM Disk restore

 

 

Interesting Links

Please share your experience with SAN mode restore! I am interested in observed bandwidth comparing backup with restore.


Thanks @vNote42 , i already read a san restore in the website best pratices (i don’t re found the article :zipper_mouth: ) It’s a good reminder!


I dont have any numbers but especially on old HP EVA storages eager zeroed restores were much faster then any other SAN mode. Which devices did you use in your tests @vNote42 ?


Didn't EVA go up to 5.5 or even 6.0? Can't find them in the VMware HCL anymore :sweat_smile:

Which SAN was used in your second example? The difference is like day and night...


I dont have any numbers but especially on old HP EVA storages eager zeroed restores were much faster then any other SAN mode. Which devices did you use in your tests @vNote42 ?

Latest arrays I tested with: HPE 3PAR (FC), Primera (FC), Nimble (iSCSI and FC). I also think the version of vSphere matters here. When you say EVA, the version number was probably <5 :smiley:


Didn't EVA go up to 5.5 or even 6.0? Can't find them in the VMware HCL anymore :sweat_smile:

Which SAN was used in your second example? The difference is like day and night...

93 % difference I saw on a Nimble HF40; FC host ports and Sync-mirror. But interesting as well: on this array I had nearly the same speed for backup and restore (eager thick) in SAN mode. 


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