Excluding Folders From PBS Scheduled VM Snapshots

[amtiskaw]

Hi

Is there any way to exclude a folder on a VM from a snapshot level backup? We have a Microsoft WSUS VM, and I'd like to exclude the downloaded Windows updates from the snapshot if at all possible.

 

[dcsapak]

No this is not possible, since VM backups are block based not file based (meaning the whole disk is backed up and the backup client has no idea about the internal file structure of the disk)

 

[fabian]

one workaround would be to move that data onto its own disk, and exclude that whole disk from backup (but there are some caveats w.r.t. how excluded disks are handled when restoring from a backup).

 

[amtiskaw]

No this is not possible, since VM backups are block based not file based (meaning the whole disk is backed up and the backup client has no idea about the internal file structure of the disk

one workaround would be to move that data onto its own disk, and exclude that whole disk from backup (but there are some caveats w.r.t. how excluded disks are handled when restoring from a backup).

That sounds like a plan, I'll look into it - thanks!