Sector-Level Disk Image Backup (P2V, V2P, P2P, V2V) and How to Use It

Sector-level disk image backup (P2V, V2P, P2P, V2V) in BackupChain offers several advantages. Physical disks can be copied to either physical disks or virtual disks and vice versa. The supported formats are VHD, VHDX, VDI, and VMDK. The resulting physical to virtual (P2V) or virtual to physical (V2P) conversions are bootable as VMs or physical machines in most circumstances. Virtual disks may be mounted to Windows (VHD, VHDX, depending on Windows version) or you can use the BackupChain Monitor Application to access disk images and restore files individually without restoring the entire disk image.

Physical to Physical Disk Copy (P2P) / Disk Cloning

Copying physical disks to physical disks on a schedule allows you to always have an independent boot disk or data disk available when the original disks fail.

• Copy RAID array disk contents to a single disk, which can be simply plugged in or brought online (via Windows Disk Management) when needed. Or the disk can be plugged into another server at any time.
• Copy the system disk or data disk to another disk. Unlike a typical mirror RAID you now have some reaction time in case of a virus attack or accidental deletion. Also the disk can be placed offline or physically removed from the server for additional safety and security, for example to protect against ransomware or theft.

See the section “Create a new disk backup task” on page 29 for detailed how-to instructions.

Physical Disk to Mounted Virtual Disk Copy: Disk to Disk Copy over LAN

Physical disk to a virtual disk appearing as physical can be achieved over the network:

Create VHDs on target server and share the VHD files using a network share. Mount the VHDs on the other server where you plan to run the backup via Disk Management. They now appear as “real” physical disks even though they are VHDs stored on a network server.

Then create a physical disk to disk copy task in BackupChain to copy each disk to its own target disk. In case of a disaster the disks are immediately accessible on the target server or any other server over the network. The VHDs can be attached to VMs if need be (and booted) or simply attach them via Disk Management to any computer you want to access files immediately.

See the section “Create a new disk backup task” on page 29 for detailed how-to instructions.

Live VM Conversion (V2V)

Another unique feature in BackupChain is its ability to back up live virtual machines into a different virtual disk format, while running and without interruptions. You could for example, convert a VM from VMware Workstation to Hyper-V or VirtualBox and vice versa.

See the section “Create a new disk backup task” on page 29 for detailed how-to instructions.

Physical to Virtual (P2V) and Virtual to Physical Conversion (V2P)

A virtual disk can be converted and copied to a physical disk and vice versa.

See the section “Create a new disk backup task” on page 29 for detailed how-to instructions.