How to Backup and Restore Hyper-V Virtual Machine

Hyper-V virtual machines may be backed up using two different methods.

One method is to back up Hyper-V’s files and folders manually.

BackupChain also offers a fully automatic way to back up and restore your virtual machines.

Important: You need to have the Hyper-V Integration Services installed in your virtual machines.

Hyper-V Live Backup Prerequisites

In order for live backup to be available in the guest VM:

Install the latest Hyper-V Integration Services.

Install the latest Windows updates to your host server.

Avoid using snapshots because they are not recommended for production systems. If you do use snapshots, store them in the same folder as the main VHDs.

Do not change snapshot folders once you have created snapshots.

Be aware that when you delete snapshots Hyper-V hides from the user interface but they are still in operation until the VM is shut down for a while.

Ensure all VHDs have a basic disk partition layout. Live backup of VMs using dynamic disk partitioning is not yet supported by Hyper-V. (Dynamic disk partition layouts are not related to dynamically growing VHDs)

Ensure NTFS is used throughout.

Hyper-V integration services are necessary to use live backup. On some guest operating systems there is no live backup support.