Snaprestore on LUN?

Someone deleted a VM server and recovery has been confusing since we don't know where the server or it's disks were before deletion.

Despite the deleted servers vmdk being 15TB, I'm not sure how to perform a snaprestore restor-file on a SAN lun as I hear it's either not supported or unconventional to do but we don't have Snapcenter.

Can we make a clone of a snapshot instead, giving it a lun id and then attaching that datastore to the esx host. What's the best method to do this?

Thanks

StorageVMware

Last Comment

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

8/22/2022 - Mon

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

12/4/2019

You do not mention which SAN, but if this was a NetApp Filer, you would just create a CLONE from the Snapshot LUN. (or Restore the snaposhot to the same LUN, but be careful because this will overwrite the existing LUN/datastore).

and then present the LUN to the ESXi host (which would already have a VMFS partition/datastore).

BUT....it's likely that this datastore may already exist, and LUN may already exist, so you have to mount with care, which will need a re signature before mounting. (ESXi wizard will do this).

It's easier to do it, to a different non-production ESXi server, than part of your cluster.

snyderkv

12/4/2019

ASKER

Yes it is Netapp. I guess we're on the right track but the reason why we couldn't restore the volume was because the LUN inside it contains multiple servers that we don't want to overwrite.

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

12/4/2019

Yes, so you will need to use Flexclone, and it depends if you have licenses for that, not everybody does.

Or use, clone function to restore from snapshot.

Do you not have any other method of restore ?

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snyderkv

12/4/2019

ASKER

No but we cloned a snapshot already. Didn't know Flexclone could be used for restores.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

12/4/2019

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