CommVault VADP Backups - Single file restores gotcha

Ran in to this little issue today when performing single file restores from a CommVault 11 VMware VADP based backup:

When running a single file restore from a VADP backup to an Agent based client recovery you have to be careful. The restore will queue up all data to be recovered to a temporary folder on the destination/proxy client, which by default is in the CommVault Client install path (defaults on C:\Program Files\CommVault).

This means that if the TOTAL size of the restore is 200GB, then you MUST have 200+GB of FREE SPACE on the volume. It doesn't matter if it's 200 files 1GB in size, or 1 200GB file, you must have enough free space to buffer the ENTIRE restore.

The work around I had to utilize today was to run multiple smaller restores that didn't exceed the free space on the drive that CommVault was installed.

I know, you can load the Linux Appliance and use that as the proxy, or you could create a VMDK and mount it that way... There are other options, but this assumes you have setup these methods in advance. And no, when I talked to CommVault, they said you can't restore ONLY the selected files to a VMDK, that it was an "all or nothing" option for that, which is a shame.

There are also registry keys that can be used to redirect this buffer data, but it just seems cumbersome.

I have used other solutions *cough*NetBackup*cough* that you can restore single files or entire sets of files from VADP backups without this buffer space required. Pretty nice if you ask me.

More info on CommVault Granular File Recovery can be read at:
http://documentation.commvault.com/commvault/v11/article?p=products/vs_vmware/c_vmw_restore_guest_files.htm

Good Luck
Charles
@whitehattechs

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