Backup VM then delete from PVE

[toomanylogins]

Hello,

I have a working setup of PVE6 and PBS 1. I'm trying to establish if we can use PBS as an archive for virtual machines we are no longer using in the live environment. So we backup the PVE guest to PBS then delete from live system. The primary reason for doing this is to free up storage in the live environment.

What is the correct mechanism for doing this.

1. Backup to PBS and delete guest as above
2. Backup to PBS keep geust but remove the storage on PVE.

I would prefer to delete to keep things simple but does this complicate the restore process ?
Thank you
Paul

 

[Stefan_R]

You can restore VMs even if they don't exist at the moment. For that, select the PBS storage in the tree on the left and enter the "Backups" tab. You can restore any backup from there, you can assign it a new VMID.

So yes, you can delete a VM entirely if you have a backup. Remember that a backup is only a backup if you have restore-tested it, so I'd recommend trying the backup/delete/restore dance a few times with unimportant VMs before moving to production.

 

[toomanylogins]

Thanks, I will test it first. That functionality is very useful.