Exclude disks from backups
Excluding virtual disks can reduce the size of the backup, but use these options carefully. They are intended only for the virtual machines that have multiple virtual disks.
Table: Options for excluding virtual disks
Exclude option | Description |
|---|---|
All boot disks | Consider this option if you have another means of recreating the boot disk. The virtual machine's boot disk is not included in the backup. Any other disks are backed up. Data files are available in the restored data disks. However, you cannot start a virtual machine that is restored from this backup. |
All data disks | Consider this option only if you have a separate protection plan that backs up the data disks. The virtual machine's data disks are not included in the backup. Only the boot disk is backed up. When the virtual machine is restored from the backup, the virtual machine data for the data disk may be missing or incomplete. |
Exclude disks based on a custom attribute | Use this option to allow the VMware administrator to use a custom attribute to control which disks are excluded from backups. The attribute must have comma-separated
values of device controllers for the disks to be excluded. For example:
The VMware administrator must use a VMware interface to apply the attribute to the disks to exclude. See the NetBackup Plug-in for VMware vSphere Web Client Guide or the NetBackup Plug-in for VMware vSphere Client (HTML5) Guide. |
Specific disks to be excluded | Use this option to exclude a specific disk by the disk type, controller, and LUN that represent the virtual device node of the disk. Click to specify additional disks. If you add controllers between any differential backups, their disks are excluded from the next backup. |