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I downloaded the Veeams Agent for Windows and went through the setup process for a full volume backup. I followed the online manual to set the options. However, there are some questions that remain, and I was wondering if anyone could help?

The first question I have is that the backup file size is almost 1TB (or about 30%) smaller than the size of the volume to be backed up. And this is not just empty space, the volume had 3.6TB used space, of which only 2.7TB was backed up. What is the reason for this? Looking at the compression ratio, it doesn’t seem sufficient to explain the discrepancy. 

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The second question is actually related. The backup I made was of my C: drive, and I want to know if I were to use the full volume backup for restoring to a completely new drive, would it restore the drive exactly including the boot sectors (i.e. I would simply be able to swap in the new drive and the computer would boot and run as before)?  Below I show a screenshot of the configuration I used.

The backup volume configuration

One reason I am asking is related to the first question, because I know some cloud backup service providers specifically omit certain types of files they consider non-essential such as exectubale files, system files, etc… I actually want everything to be backed up completely so that I don’t have to trouble with installing anything after doing a restore in case of a hard drive failure. Does Veeams Agent specifically exclude certain types of files (other than the backup file itself)? Would it affect my stated goal?

Finally, I also noticed that the Veeams restore media on the USB is **much** smaller than Windows 11 restore media. Is this correct or should I redo the restore media creation process? I am concerned of course that if my restore media USB is not working then there would still be no way to recover the backup image in case of a hard drive failure making the whole thing pointless.

 

Thank you!

Hi!

 

Lets go through these point by point:

 

The simple answer is that Veeam does more than just backing up block for block, it performs compression and deduplication of data, so that’s where the 30% reduction comes into effect. It managed to use data efficiency techniques to make your backup 30% smaller than the source data.

As you’re backing up the entire volume, no it’s not performing exclusions. This would only happen if you did a file-level backup you could choose what to protect within your volume.

Finally, yes the restore media SHOULD be much smaller than Windows 11 restore media. The restore media is deliberately small because it just needs to boot up a minimal shell working space for Veeam to restore your backup which contains the actual data we care about.

 

RE restoring to another drive for the same PC: sure if the hardware is the same, if the hardware differs you might need to add drivers but that’s it

Hi!

 

Lets go through these point by point:

 

The simple answer is that Veeam does more than just backing up block for block, it performs compression and deduplication of data, so that’s where the 30% reduction comes into effect. It managed to use data efficiency techniques to make your backup 30% smaller than the source data.

As you’re backing up the entire volume, no it’s not performing exclusions. This would only happen if you did a file-level backup you could choose what to protect within your volume.

Finally, yes the restore media SHOULD be much smaller than Windows 11 restore media. The restore media is deliberately small because it just needs to boot up a minimal shell working space for Veeam to restore your backup which contains the actual data we care about.

 

RE restoring to another drive for the same PC: sure if the hardware is the same, if the hardware differs you might need to add drivers but that’s it

Thank you!

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