VMware has 3 types of disk modes for virtual machine disks:
- Dependent disk mode: This is the standard virtual disk mode and configured by default for all new virtual machine disks. When a snapshot is requested, dependent disks are included in the snapshot.
- Independent - Persistent disk mode: In this mode, all data written to a disk stays permanently written to the disk, even if you revert back from a snapshot. Independent disks do not participate in the snapshot operation.
- Independent - Non-persistent mode: In this mode, the disk is considered a read-only disk. When data is written, it will occur in a redo file instead of being permanently written to disk. When the machine is powered off or restarted, all the new data will be discarded.
vRanger Backup & Replication limitations when working with independent disks:
- Per the agentless process, a snapshot is requested for the machine - even when disk exclusions are explicitly set at the job level. In order to avoid a snapshot on a specific disk, it is possible to change the disk mode to Independent - Persistent.
- vRanger will skip any disk that is currently set to Independent disk mode.
- In order to backup an independent disk, it is required to use the vRanger Windows physical agent.
