Supported operating systems
VMware backup and recovery is available on Windows devices. Here is the list of supported Windows versions:
- Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11 – Pro and Enterprise editions only (due to Microsoft licensing limitations)
- Windows Server 2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 2019 and 2022 – Standard and Data-center editions only (due to Microsoft licensing limitations)
Supported ESXi versions
The following ESXi versions are officially supported:
- 6.0
- 6.5 (requires Backup Manager 17.4 or later)
- In the Recovery Console, this target is available only to those backup devices that are running Backup Manager 17.3 or later
- 7.0
- 8.0
When a version of a third-party product reaches End of Life, we will endeavor to provide best effort support. However, if versions which are no longer supported by their company begin to fail, the assistance our Support Teams can provide is limited.
Access to most backup and recovery options requires a paid version of ESXi. There is an alternative solution for free ESXi users, but it takes some extra steps.
Free ESXi backup
- Install Backup Manager on each of your VMware virtual machines (a separate device for each VM)
- Back up the virtual machine. Here is the minimum requirement:
- The system state of your VM (the System State data source)
- The whole system disk –
C:\or another disk that has your operating system and that the operating system boots from (the Files and Folders data source)
- Perform recovery in either of these ways:
- Create a new virtual machine with required characteristics and perform bare metal recovery there (recommended as a faster option)
- Perform virtual disaster recovery to a VMDK file. Use VMware vCenter Converter to convert the local VMDK file from the workstation format to the appropriate format and to attach it to the ESXi server
For restore purposes, you must ensure the version of VMWare ESXi on the restore device is the same or higher as is on the backup device.
Recommended pre-backup settings
Before you start backups, it can be a good idea to enable Changed Block Tracking (CBT) on your virtual machines. It is a highly effective feature that reduces the duration of subsequent backups.
For requirements and instructions, please refer to article 1020128 from the VMware Knowledge Base (Changed Block Tracking (CBT) on virtual machines).
Note that the CBT feature does not influence statistics in the Size of processed files and Transferred size columns in backup reports.
The CBT feature is not available when creating a new role in vCenter 7.
Configure VMDK Connection Transport Method
It is possible to configure a transport method for VMDK Connections in the Backup Manager configuration file (config.ini):
- Stop the Backup Service Controller. See Restarting the internal backup processes and service for details
- Open a text editor as an Administrator
- Open the Backup Manager configuration file
config.ini. See Updating configuration file for where to find the file - If it does not already exist, add a new section containing the following information:
[VMWare] VDDKTransportMode=value
Where
valueis replaced with one of the applicable Transport Mode Values. - Save and close the
config.inifile - Start the Backup Service Controller
Transport Mode Values
The choice of which transport mode is selected is made by the Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK).
The options of values that can be used for the VDDKTransportMode are:
| Value |
|---|
auto (Default) |
nbd
|
san
|
hotadd
|
nbdssl
|
file
|
You can find more information on Virtual Disk Transport Methods on the VMware documentation.
Limitations
We cannot support backup for:
- Templates
- vApps
Recovery
Instructions on restoring data from this data source can be found on Recovering data in Backup Manager.
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