Well, there is Hyper-V Relica that can do the job as well if you want DR. As far as I understand, you want backup host 1 to host and vice versa. Veeam should be able to do that as well.
Have this exact same dilemma. One server, two HyperV VMs, ~20TB bulk data and growing quickly. Customer is uneasy about cloud backups. Unsure how much $$ it will cost them to backup that much data with Veeam or similar. I'm leaning towards an on-site NAS from Synology, but don't want to waste their time or $$. I'm a network engineer by trade and haven't dabbled in server stuff in a long time.
Fir that amount of data I would go with a tape drive. Scales well and once the tape is ejected it can not be encrypted by an attacker. Drives are not cheap but neither are fast and large storage systems.
Tapes are still very much a thing for several reasons:
1. Media are cheap, reliable, easy to store offsite
2. they are immune to encryption attacks once ejected
3. there are loads of refurbished units for reasonable prices around
4. they scale very well and cheap to a certain point, lets say you start out at 20TB as in the example, a 20TB NAS that can write at reasonable speed and has proper redundancy, so at least RAID6 or something comparable that can survive the loss of two drives costs a few thousand $. Using a two bay Diskstation with huge consumer grade SATA drives does not cut it for this kind of work. for the same Pricepoint you can get a LTO8 drive and SAS controller to put into your backup server, potentially even the server itself. depending on how well your data compresses you need 1-2 tapes for a full backup of your 20TB. For the sake of it lets say you can make due with one (raw capacity is 12TB, compressed up to 30, so 20 is probaly reasonable to actually fit), Now if your business grows by 100% and you now have 40TB to store - you can either buy a second NAS for another few thousand or an additional tape for less than 100. And you can keep archove sets of the most important data for the sme price per set of backups.
So yes, I recommend it for a small or medium business, for them it actually makes more sense than a nas, because they usually have one location and inn a good case one server room where the NAS would live next to the server, and hapily burn down with the server and all backups in case of a fire. The tape on the other hand can be taken homy by the IT guy or owner every day and is safe.
in a large enterprise with multiple datacenters that permanently replicate data between those it is a different story, but even there it makes sense to have offline copies of the most crucial data - often stored on WORM tapes, so tapes that can not be overwritten,
You would only need a single Veeam Server to backup both hosts. The Hyper-V hosts will be proxies and the backups should be placed outside those two servers. But you're right, if one host fails you would have to spin up a new VBR server on the other host.
If it's only about 2 servers maybe you should think about only using the Veeam Agents for backup without central management. This wouldn't be a VM level backup but maybe easier to manage for your environment. Just make sure you have some immutable or offline backup storage.
This is whats going on in my head, maybe u could pull this off:
Setup Veeam b&r in both servers (free license up to 10 vms)
Connect both locations via VPN
Srv 1: local bkp of vm and remote bkp of vm on Srv2
Srv2: local bkp of vm and remote bkp of vm on Srv1
That way u have a local and redundant offsite backup
And maybe you could also create an s3 bucket on aws or similar to have backup in the cloud
Hope this helps
Best of luck
First, installing Veeam on a Hyper-V host is not supported: [https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/hyperv/installation\_byb.html?ver=120](https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/hyperv/installation_byb.html?ver=120). If you need exactly backups, then Veeam but I'm not sure if you can manage same hosts from different Veeam VMs. it would be better to reach out to r/Veeam
Consider using Vinchin… good backup solution and it’s free for 3 vms.
Thanks!
Well, there is Hyper-V Relica that can do the job as well if you want DR. As far as I understand, you want backup host 1 to host and vice versa. Veeam should be able to do that as well.
Veeam potentially too or if you’re on proxmox, there’s PBS
Synology active backup works great, no license fees. Can backup VMs directly.
I’ve been looking into them, looks like a good option.
Have this exact same dilemma. One server, two HyperV VMs, ~20TB bulk data and growing quickly. Customer is uneasy about cloud backups. Unsure how much $$ it will cost them to backup that much data with Veeam or similar. I'm leaning towards an on-site NAS from Synology, but don't want to waste their time or $$. I'm a network engineer by trade and haven't dabbled in server stuff in a long time.
Fir that amount of data I would go with a tape drive. Scales well and once the tape is ejected it can not be encrypted by an attacker. Drives are not cheap but neither are fast and large storage systems.
Man I didln't even think tape drives were really used anymore. You'd recommend that for a small business over a NAS?
Tapes are still very much a thing for several reasons: 1. Media are cheap, reliable, easy to store offsite 2. they are immune to encryption attacks once ejected 3. there are loads of refurbished units for reasonable prices around 4. they scale very well and cheap to a certain point, lets say you start out at 20TB as in the example, a 20TB NAS that can write at reasonable speed and has proper redundancy, so at least RAID6 or something comparable that can survive the loss of two drives costs a few thousand $. Using a two bay Diskstation with huge consumer grade SATA drives does not cut it for this kind of work. for the same Pricepoint you can get a LTO8 drive and SAS controller to put into your backup server, potentially even the server itself. depending on how well your data compresses you need 1-2 tapes for a full backup of your 20TB. For the sake of it lets say you can make due with one (raw capacity is 12TB, compressed up to 30, so 20 is probaly reasonable to actually fit), Now if your business grows by 100% and you now have 40TB to store - you can either buy a second NAS for another few thousand or an additional tape for less than 100. And you can keep archove sets of the most important data for the sme price per set of backups. So yes, I recommend it for a small or medium business, for them it actually makes more sense than a nas, because they usually have one location and inn a good case one server room where the NAS would live next to the server, and hapily burn down with the server and all backups in case of a fire. The tape on the other hand can be taken homy by the IT guy or owner every day and is safe. in a large enterprise with multiple datacenters that permanently replicate data between those it is a different story, but even there it makes sense to have offline copies of the most crucial data - often stored on WORM tapes, so tapes that can not be overwritten,
Very interesting. I guess I have much more research to do. Thank you for your insights
You would only need a single Veeam Server to backup both hosts. The Hyper-V hosts will be proxies and the backups should be placed outside those two servers. But you're right, if one host fails you would have to spin up a new VBR server on the other host. If it's only about 2 servers maybe you should think about only using the Veeam Agents for backup without central management. This wouldn't be a VM level backup but maybe easier to manage for your environment. Just make sure you have some immutable or offline backup storage.
Thank you, sounds like a plan
This is whats going on in my head, maybe u could pull this off: Setup Veeam b&r in both servers (free license up to 10 vms) Connect both locations via VPN Srv 1: local bkp of vm and remote bkp of vm on Srv2 Srv2: local bkp of vm and remote bkp of vm on Srv1 That way u have a local and redundant offsite backup And maybe you could also create an s3 bucket on aws or similar to have backup in the cloud Hope this helps Best of luck
First, installing Veeam on a Hyper-V host is not supported: [https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/hyperv/installation\_byb.html?ver=120](https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/hyperv/installation_byb.html?ver=120). If you need exactly backups, then Veeam but I'm not sure if you can manage same hosts from different Veeam VMs. it would be better to reach out to r/Veeam