NetVault Bare Metal Recovery 12.0 - User Guide for Plug-ins

Primary Partition: Each hard disk can contain up to four different “true partitions.” They are called the primary partitions, and can be individually selected for backup.

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Extended Partition: This partition is the space on the hard disk not allocated to the primary partitions. This type of partition cannot be selected for a backup. To add it, the entire drive must be selected.

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Logical Partition: Logical partitions allow multiple system images to run in one machine. This option can be multiple instances of the same OS or different systems. Logical partitions can be individually selected for a backup.

Click Save, enter a name in the Create New Set dialog box, and click Save.

The name can contain alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric characters, but it cannot include non-English characters. On Linux, the name can have a maximum of 200 characters. On Windows, there is no length restriction. However, a maximum of 40 characters is recommended on all platforms.

Setting backup options for backing up data with Plug-in Offline Client

The next step involves creating the Backup Options Set.

Next to the Plugin Options list, click Create New.

Select the applicable options:

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Disk Raw Mode: Select this option if you want all partition information for a selected hard drive ignored and a “bit-by-bit” backup of the entire disk image performed. This bit-by-bit form of data transfer occurs during the restore of this backup as well, thus eliminating the need to format the target drive or remove the partition.

Cases in which Disk Raw Mode is desired include:

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The selected hard drive does not have a partition table.

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NetVault Bare Metal Recovery cannot recognize the partition table.

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You are backing up data outside the MBR and partitions, for example, dynamic disks.

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Compression: To compress data on the NetVault Bare Metal Recovery Client before transfer during backup, select this option. This option reduces overall network traffic during data transfer and also requires less media space to accommodate the NetVault Bare Metal Recovery backup. This option is useful for partitions that contain a large amount of unused space. Selecting this option usually provides better compression than using a network-based or tape-library-based compression feature.


	IMPORTANT: If you use BitLocker and you enable the Compression and Disk Raw Mode options, the backup process might take longer. This might happen if the size of the data with Compression enabled is similar to the size of the uncompressed data and you are using the BitLocker full volume encryption (FVE) option. To improve the speed of the backup process, use the BitLocker used disk space only option instead of FVE.

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Back up used blocks only for NTFS partitions: If you are using the Windows PE-based Plug-in Offline Client and the backup includes Windows-based partitions, select this option if you only want to back up the used blocks. If you clear this option, a discrepancy (4 K) between the backup data and the size of the NTFS volume might be reported in the binary log; this option is working as intended, and does not affect a restore. If you are using the Linux-based Plug-in Offline Client, this option is visible but not functional.

Click Save.

In the Create New Set dialog box, specify a name for the set, and click Save.

Finalizing and submitting the job for backing up data with Plug-in Offline Client

The final steps include setting additional options on the Schedule, Target Storage, and Advanced Options pages, submitting the job, and monitoring the progress through the Job Status and View Logs pages. These pages and options are common to all NetVault Backup Plug-ins. For more information, see the Quest NetVault Backup Administrator’s Guide.

Use the Schedule, Target Storage, and Advanced Options lists to configure any additional required options.

Click Save or Save & Submit, whichever is applicable.


	TIP: To run a job that you have already created and saved, select Manage Job Definitions in the Navigation pane, select the applicable job, and click Run Now.

You can monitor progress on the Job Status page and view the logs on the View Logs page. For more information, see the Quest NetVault Backup Administrator’s Guide.

Restoring data with Plug-in Offline Client

The following topics describe how to restore backups to various configurations, such as a physical machine or a Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) image.

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Using Plug-in Offline Client to restore data to a physical machine

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Using Plug-in Offline Client to restore data as a VMDK Image

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Using Plug-in Offline Client to recover data to a standby NetVault Bare Metal Recovery Client


	CAUTION: Before attempting to recover to the same disk that you backed up, verify that all existing partitions have been removed; otherwise, recovery to the same disk might fail, unless the data was backed up using Disk Raw Mode. Verify that the Disk Geometry of the OS targeted by the restore matches the geometry of the source OS that was backed up. If they do not match, for example, the source used 32 sectors per track, and the target uses 63 sectors, an error occurs when the system attempts to start.