Restoring Guest OS Files
With Veeam Backup & Replication, you can swiftly recover specific files and folders from guest operating systems. This feature ensures a rapid and resource-efficient restore process by directly restoring them from backups, eliminating the need for additional storage resources.
Using the following methods, you can restore files from different guest OS file systems:
| Restore from Microsoft Windows File Systems (FAT, NTFS or ReFS) | The restore from FAT, NTFS, and ReFS method helps you restore files from backups or replicas of Microsoft Windows workloads with NTFS, FAT, and ReFS file systems. For the complete list of supported file systems, see Platform Support.
You can restore files to the original or new location, restore changes and permissions, work with the restored files using Microsoft Windows File Explorer, or launch application item restore for the files. |
| Restore from Linux, Unix and Other File Systems | The method of restoring from Linux, Unix, and other file systems helps you restore files from backups or replicas of Linux, Solaris, BSD, Novell Storage Services, Unix, and Mac workloads.
You can restore files to the original or new location, access restored files using FTP, or launch application item restore for the files. You can also recover guest OS files of VMware vSphere VMs directly from storage snapshots. |
| Restore from Other File Systems | There are also other ways of restoration where the above methods are not sufficient. |
Veeam Backup & Replication streamlines the file-level restore process using a specialized helper appliance in the case of Linux, Unix and other files systems. This lightweight VM, equipped with a lean Linux kernel, swiftly mounts VM disks as virtual hard drives directly from backup files. By bypassing the need for extraction, the Veeam solution accelerates file-level restoration, ensuring rapid recovery of critical data from VM guest OS with unmatched efficiency. In the case of restoring Windows this is performed by the Mount Server.
For effortless restoration of files from VM guest OS, excluding Microsoft Windows, Veeam Backup & Replication offers the Guest File Restore wizard. This powerful tool empowers users with various options to seamlessly mount VM disks from backups or replicas, ensuring hassle-free access and recovery of vital data with unmatched ease including the following options for mounting disks of a VM from the backup or replica:
| Mounting Disks to a Helper Host | When choosing a helper host for file-level restore, you can select the target host or any other Linux host as the desired destination.
Optimal performance is achieved when the same host is specified for both the restore target and the file-level restore operation, ensuring the fastest and most efficient recovery of files from backups. |
| Mounting Disks to a Helper Appliance | The helper appliance is a lightweight virtual machine (VM) running a minimal Linux kernel with essential components, occupying just approximately 50 MB in size.
With a requirement of 1024 MB RAM and a quick boot time of around 10 seconds, the appliance is designed for efficient and speedy operation during the file-level restore process. |