Hyper-V Backup

You can protect MS Hyper-V virtual machines against data loss using the Online Backup Client.

You can select all virtual machines detected on the current computer or only some of them. For each virtual machine, you can select just one of its disks (.vhd or .vhdx). We recommend selecting the whole virtual machine though.

Hyper-V machines are backed up together with their snapshots. This lets you return a machine to a previous state after recovery.

Backing up Hyper-V clusters

You can back up clustered Hyper-V virtual machines that reside on Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV). The clusters deployed on the following operating systems are supported: Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

Limitations (known issues):

• The backup includes only locally hosted Hyper-V machines.
• It isn't possible to back up a CSV and non-CSV volume in the same set on Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2. This is a Windows limitation.
• A backup job may fail if the backup selection contains a Hyper-V cluster deployed on Windows Server 2008 R2 or an earlier version.

Please configure backup settings for Hyper-V clusters in the following way:

1. Expand the selection tree for the Hyper-V data source.
2. Mark the virtual machines with checkboxes. Make sure you do not select the host component.

Important: the backup of a Hyper-V cluster will fail if the root folder is selected.

Backup requirements for Hyper-V

The Online Backup Client must be installed on the same server where Hyper-V is running.

Versions 2.0 and 3.0 running on the following operating systems are supported: Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2 and 2016 as well as Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2 and 2016.

It isn't necessary to stop your virtual machines during backups.

Pre-backup settings for Hyper-V

For SMB 3.0 shares used as storage for Hyper-V

Starting from version 16.5 released in May 2016, it is possible to back up and restore Hyper-V machines that have some or all of their virtual disks on an SMB 3.0 share.

Please make sure the following conditions are met before you start backing up such a virtual machine.

1. The Hyper-V host and the SMB3 server must belong to the same Active Directory domain.
2. The SMB3 server must have the File Server VSS Agent Service installed.
3. The network share on the SMB3 server must be created with the "Applications" profile (under Select Profile, select SMB Share — Applications).
4. The Hyper-V host (namely its Local System account) must have full access to the network share (the Permissions step of the installation wizard).

Increasing backup speed (optional)

To take advantage of the best possible backup speed, you can enable the volume snapshot integration service (also referred to as the volume checkpoint in the newer versions of Hyper-V). This lets the Online Backup Client use the help of native VSS writers during backups. It improves backup speed and reduces the amount of data transmitted to the cloud.

1. Start the Hyper-V Manager.
2. Right-click the virtual machine you want to back up. Choose Settings from the context menu.
3. Go to Management > Integration services. Enable the Backup (volume checkpoint) option (or Backup (volume snapshot) in the older versions of Hyper-V).

Note: Online Backup (Datashield) is a legacy product only available to older Atera accounts. For newer backup solutions, check this page.