Best practices for backing up Hyper-V VMs

Consider the following best practices when creating and running backup jobs using the Hyper-V Agent:

• Include more than one VM in a backup job

• Avoid creating a separate backup job for each VM. The agent is optimized for backing up multiple VMs concurrently in one job.

• Avoid unnecessary reseeds. After the first backup for a Hyper-V VM, the agent only sends data that has changed since the last backup to the vault. However, under some circumstances, “reseeds” can occur. In a reseed, all data for a VM is sent to the vault even though the VM was previously backed up.

  The following list describes situations when backups reseed:

  • VM backups in a job reseed if the job’s encryption password changes.

  • A VM backup reseeds if it is backed up as part of one backup job, and then moved to a job with a different encryption password.

    If a VM is moved to a different backup job with the same encryption password, the VM backup does not reseed.