Best practices for seeding Hyper-V VM backups

The first backup for a Hyper-V VM is a “seed” backup, in which all VM data is sent to the vault. Consider the following best practices when seeding Hyper-V VM backups.

• Seed backups locally

• Ideally, use a Satellite vault to provide fast, local vault access. If you do not use a Satellite vault, consider using a temporary vault to seed Hyper-V backups locally. The data can then be imported into an offsite vault.

• Seed VM backups in separate jobs

• Seeding backups, particularly for large VMs, can take a significant amount of time. Because deferring is not available for scheduled Hyper-V backup jobs, it is best not to seed VMs in a scheduled job. If you add a VM to an existing scheduled job, the job could take a long time, and potentially cause the backup to overlap the next scheduled backup.

To seed a VM backup, we recommend creating a temporary job with the VM. You can seed the VM backup by running the temporary job manually (ad hoc) with deferring, and then move the VM to an existing scheduled job. To avoid reseeding, the encryption password and vault must be the same in the temporary job and in the job where you eventually add the VM.

Note: Normally, it is best to include multiple VMs in a single backup job.

To create and run a job manually (ad hoc) to seed a VM backup:

1. Create a temporary backup job that includes the VM that you want to seed. Ensure that the encryption password and vault for the temporary job are the same as the password and vault for the job where you eventually want to add the VM. See Add a Hyper-V backup job.

2. Run the temporary job manually (ad hoc). You can enable deferring when running the job manually, and run the job multiple times until the VM backup is completely seeded. See Run an ad-hoc backup.

3. After the VM backup is seeded, move the VM out of the temporary job, and add it into an existing scheduled job.

   The VM backup will continue without reseeding because the vault and encryption password are the same in the temporary job and in the existing scheduled job.