Veeam Recovery Media for multiple W10 devices?

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kiwifidget

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#273146 7-Aug-2020 10:01

Hi,

I have a few Win10 Pro computers, and I am using the free Window Veeam agent to back them up to a NAS.

They are all 64bit but a mixture of US and UK. Not sure how that happened but that's the way it is.

Would they all need their very own Recovery USB media, or could I get away with creating 1 and it would work with the others?

Thanks.

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xpd

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#2536157 7-Aug-2020 10:38

I think they'll need their own - probably find that there will be some identifier so they know theyre going back to the same system. Best way to find out, is try it on a couple.

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kiwifidget

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#2536161 7-Aug-2020 10:47

@xpd thanks, I'm gonna need more sticks!

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xpd

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#2536181 7-Aug-2020 11:23

Before you do that..... it depends how Veeam manages it - Im not sure if the USB is just used for a boot to then connect to your backup source - if so, a single USB is fine. But if Veeam builds the USB off the setup backup location then it'll need individual.

I've not had to do a restore from the Windows agent so far (touch wood)...... now Ive said that, somethings gonna happen tonight to my home server and I'll need to recover :)

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bagheera

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#2536186 7-Aug-2020 11:33

what I normally do is make a c:\veeam on the pc, save the iso there for the pc, if needed for a restore, then I use veeam explorer to get the iso out and make a boot USB from that. That way it there always, the USB stick does not go walkabout dies etc.

trig42

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#2536189 7-Aug-2020 11:36

Pretty certain you can use the Veeam recovery media to restore any system.

You *may* run into issues if the system you are restoring requires different storage drivers (the old 'F6' drivers)

https://forums.veeam.com/veeam-agent-for-windows-f33/can-one-recovery-media-be-used-to-restore-other-pcs-t53686.html

Gurezaemon

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#2536196 7-Aug-2020 11:40

trig42:

Pretty certain you can use the Veeam recovery media to restore any system.

You *may* run into issues if the system you are restoring requires different storage drivers (the old 'F6' drivers)

https://forums.veeam.com/veeam-agent-for-windows-f33/can-one-recovery-media-be-used-to-restore-other-pcs-t53686.html

^This. I've had a single Veeam recovery disk (and later, a USB stick) tucked away together with with a hard drive with various systems' backups on it, and used it several times without incident.

trig42

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#2536197 7-Aug-2020 11:42

bagheera:

what I normally do is make a c:\veeam on the pc, save the iso there for the pc, if needed for a restore, then I use veeam explorer to get the iso out and make a boot USB from that. That way it there always, the USB stick does not go walkabout dies etc.

We do a version of this as well.
Our site based Hypervisor servers have 9 drives. 5 300GB in RAID5, 2 1.2TB in RAID1, a 300GB hot spare and a 1.2TB single drive.

We have Veeam backup the RAID5 and the RAID 1 to the single drive daily. The recovery boot ISO is also on that single drive.

This obviously does not protect us against the server physically being destroyed, but does allow for a quick recovery assuming the drive(s) are intact.

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kiwifidget

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#2536207 7-Aug-2020 12:06

Thanks everyone, awesome advice as always!

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Chippo

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#2536260 7-Aug-2020 14:02

Hey All! Happy to throw my 2c in here as one of Veeam's NZ Engineers.

The Recovery USBs themselves are effectively identical. We mostly like to create unique ones per PC so that we can bundle Drivers (In particularly those pesky non-intel drivers) and optionally the backup Encryption Key as well.

This really makes restores easier for non technical users in the heat of the moment. But if your HP notebook dies and you decide to replace it with a Lenovo one - any Veeam USB Stick will do the trick, as long as you're happy to work within driver restrictions and remember your encryption key.

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An extra note: If you have a Windows "Server" hanging around (Doesn't actually need to be Windows Server), then Veeam's "Community Edition" includes centralised management for 10 "Things" as well (VMs, Physical Servers, Workstations, NAS Shares etc).

Wanted to call that out because if you go down this route, you can create the Recovery Media on-demand when you actually need them. Rather than at every upgrade.

I work for a global Data Protection Software company - But my opinions are my own.

kiwifidget

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#2536264 7-Aug-2020 14:12

@chippo Thank you. I did try the Community Edition but couldn't get it to detect any "things".

For now, I'm going to go ahead with creating the ISOs for each pc and keep a copy on the device, and a copy on the NAS. And just create the USB media if required, using something like Rufus for turning ISOs into bootable USBs.

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