Thin provisioned VMDK's backup/restore using TDPVMware

[BaR]

Hello,

I've tried looking for information on IBM's website regarding how TDPVMware works with thin provisioned VMDK's during backup/restore and found a KB which describes a slow restore with SAN on a thin provisioned VMDK but didnt find any other information about requirements/limitations on working with thin provisioned VMDK's.

Bar

 

[DanGiles]

Some of the speed/slowness will depend on the back-end storage. However, you just need to think about it for a second.

Let's say you have a thin-provisioned vmdk that started at 10G and is now at 20G. TP growth is at, say, 1G. When it starts restoring it allocates 10G. It restores 10G then expands, restores another G then expands, then...

You get the idea.

So if you set the initial size at something decent you shouldn't run into too much trouble. If the size of the vmdk grows much beyond the initial size, it would be good to reset the initial size if that's possible. (I haven't looked into that.)

 

[BaR]

So with that being said, restore should be my only concern in working with Thin Provisioned VMDK's?

 

[DanGiles]

I'm pretty sure that's the case.