Home Vcenter Backup Solution

BillHicksRIP · 14 Dec 2016 at 00:10

Hi. Weighing up my options to back up my homelab so hoping for some suggestions. Currently have 3 ESXi 5.5 hosts and Vcenter running as a guest on one of them. There's about 20 VMs all using local storage of around 2TB - mainly Centos 5/6 and a couple of Windows 2012. I'd like to backup the ones I don't use a lot and have incremental backups of the always running ones in case of hardware failure.

I've got an unRAID server on a separate machine that has plenty of space which can provide NFS or a network share. Also have the option to run a VM or docker on it although memory is tight (Q9550 and 8GB). Are there any free options available to back the ESX hosts up? I see Veeam has brought out a backup client for Linux.

Any pointers appareciated.

Scotteh · 14 Dec 2016 at 00:32

You can get an NFR for Veeam, either as a an IT pro (I think you have to throw some info at them like an Microsoft Certified Pro member ID, I'm not sure if they actually verify it though).

You can also get an NFR through http://go.veeam.com/free-nfr-license-special-for-spiceworks.html?ad=spiceworks although again you have to give them your SW username and I'm unsure if they verify this.

edit; are you wanting to backup the hosts or the actual VMs though? When I glanced over the thread to begin with I assumed you wanted VMs and now I'm second guessing myself.

randal · 14 Dec 2016 at 00:56

Just got my NFR (thanks for this thread, reminded me I needed to thank Veeam for it!), just had to say I was an IT professional who posts on /r/homelab on Reddit and that was enough.

I dropped [email protected] a line and the community manager responded within 24 hours.

BillHicksRIP · 14 Dec 2016 at 09:12

Thanks for the replies. I do want to backup the VMs rather than the hosts. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether I would need Vcenter up to do backups and restores or does Veeam talk directly to the VMs or go through the ESXi hosts?

Will look at that NFR lience too - thanks for the tip.

Hellsmk2 · 15 Dec 2016 at 23:55

Veeam should be simple enough, but just in case you wanted something different, you could always use GhettoVCB:

http://www.virtuallyghetto.com/tag/ghettovcb