Hyper-V Virtual Machine Backup and Restore
For detailed product information, please visit the BackupChain home page.
Hyper-V virtual machines may be backed up using two different methods. All methods shown below are supported by our Hyper-V backup solution, which runs on Windows Server as well as Windows PCs with Hyper-V installed.
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 in Server and Platinum Editions. Server Enterprise and higher also offer an automatic VM selection feature for Hyper-V backups.
Hyper-V Live Backup Prerequisites
In order for live backup to be available in the guest VM:
- Install the latest Hyper-V Integration Services (For hosts older than Windows Server 2016)
- 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.
- Be aware that in Server 2008 / R2, 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 NTFS is used throughout.
- Hyper-V integration services are necessary to use live backup. On some guest operating systems Hyper-V provides no live backup support. (Whether live backup takes place or a saved state backup is entirely up to Hyper-V to decide at runtime). Please check whether integration services exist for your particular guest OS and host Windows version. If you encounter a case where Hyper-V does not support live backup for a particular guest OS, you can switch off the “Backup” option in the VM’s integration options in Hyper-V Manager. This will prevent the VM from going into a saved state and provide you with a crash consistent VM backup. Application consistency, however, can only be achieved with integration services running properly and the “backup” option in Hyper-V being switched on.
Detailed Walk-throughs
For the file-based Hyper-V backup and restore method, please see: File-Based Hyper-V Backup and Restoring Hyper-V VMs Using the File-Based Method.
The recommended practice is to use the Automatic Hyper-V backup and restore method:
Automated, Single-Click Hyper-V Backup and Automatic Hyper-V Restore
Cluster Shared Volumes
Please have a look at Cluster Shared Volume Backup and Restore Considerations.
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