Thanks for the advice/suggestions. Been looking at some UPS's, made a post on the hardware section asking for recommendation of 2 models, but didnt get any responses yet

Backing up a VM is simple -- just shutdown the VM, then just copy the VM files to a folder on your array.

Do you know if there is a way to automate this? My VM is running 24/7, but im happy for it to turn off and on once a week (or every few days) to do a scheduled backup. Would be great if there was some process to automate this (ie. given a selected schedule: shutdown/pause the vm -> take backup -> start/resume the vm).

If your VM is running an OS that has a "live" imaging utility available (e.g. Windows) then you could install the live imager and simply set a schedule task for it to image the VM to your protected array -- no need to shut down the VM in that case.

 

If your VM is running an OS that has a "live" imaging utility available (e.g. Windows) then you could install the live imager and simply set a schedule task for it to image the VM to your protected array -- no need to shut down the VM in that case.

Hey There,

 

Yes, my vm is windows (w10). Could you please direct me to this live imager thing you mentioned? Is it a plugin? Docker app? or software that i should be running from within the Windows VM? Sorry, i did a quick google but i got a lot of seemingly irrelevant hits. Im not overly experienced at these things, if there is a step by step guide that would be even more amazing

 

Thanks a bunch

A live imager is any imaging utility that can image the OS while it's running.    I use Image for Windows (an excellent if a bit "geeky" utility that costs about $40 -- http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm );  but many good imaging utilities can do this ... probably the most popular paid one is Acronis True Image, but there's a good free utility from RunTime software available here:  https://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

 

A live imager is any imaging utility that can image the OS while it's running.    I use Image for Windows (an excellent if a bit "geeky" utility that costs about $40 -- http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-windows.htm );  but many good imaging utilities can do this ... probably the most popular paid one is Acronis True Image, but there's a good free utility from RunTime software available here:  https://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

 

Awesome, thanks so much. I will check those out.

 

Assuming i do take an image using one of those utilities, do you have any experiance in then using that image to restore? How would i go about that in case of a failure?

You can't restore "live".    You have to "boot" to a restore CD (you could boot to an ISO of course since it's a VM); and then do the restore from the image.    So to restore you have to shut down the VM; then "boot" the VM from the appropriate restore CD for your imaging utility; and then do the restore.

 

With Image for Windows that means you have to boot to the companion Image for DOS to do the restore.    With DriveImage XML there's a separate restore disk; and the same is true with Acronis.    All work just fine.