cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

SSR 18 and 4K/512e disks.

zito
Level 3

Hi
I have a general question about the ability to transfer Veritas System Restore (SSR) 18 images [v2i] between different types of disks on which they were captured and restored: Advanced Format 4k (native 4k) vs 512e disks.

Can partition images made on 4k disks by SSR 18, be restored on 512e disks and vice versa - images from 512e disks restored on 4k disks?
What are the compatibility limitation?

BR

17 REPLIES 17

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

@zito

I'm not aware that we have any specific guidelines or limitations about this subject.

The underlying disk type should not matter I think, it's more the disk layout (GPT, MBR) that is important here.

That said, I'd recommend you do some test restores to confirm this works.

Thanks for advice!
Truth. I've done some tests.

I am trying to restore the image of a partition that was made on a native 4k disk.
- and from my observations it appears that there is no possibility to restore it to disks other than 4k... ?!?!?

When I restore 4k image on native 4k disk (dynamic, 4k vhdx) - there is no problem.
It is only important to initialize the disk properly because SSR from SDR always initiates new disks as GPT, but sometimes we need MBR - according to image.

...but
When I try to restore 4k image to the 512e disk (no matter if it is a physical or virtual disk), I get an error message EC950006 - "destination is not valid" !!!

...and
as I mentioned above, the type of partition is not (at all) a problem. Having access to [diskpart] for example, we can properly initiate the disk even from SRD level as needed.

By the way, SRD is suitable for hyper-v <-> vmware offline migration.
The types of disks are the bottleneck.
Vmware does not support of creating vmdk that is native 4k and hyper-v does!

..so
there is a compatibility issues: images and disks types ?!

partition type (GPT/MBR) we can change but type of the disk (4k/512e) do not !

BR

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

@zito

OK, let me check on this and get back to you ..

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

@zito

OK, I've now had this confirmed ..

You can only restore 4k --> 4k and 512 --> 512. You cannot go from 4k --> 512 or vice versa.

Hope that helps.

THX! for You reply!

yes, that's unfortunately true! :\
is there any way to overcome this ... barrier ?!

I have hyper-v virtual host that use native 4k discs - and I would like to move it to VMware.
but - 4k vmdk are not supported by VMware... (?)

so far, when i had to export host, i used to use SDR iso from SSR and i never have had any problem
by the time 4k disks...
I have to switch to vConvert ?

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

@zito

I have hyper-v virtual host that use native 4k discs - and I would like to move it to VMware.
but - 4k vmdk are not supported by VMware... (?)

Have you seen this (https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2091600)? Looks like this is supported with vSphere 6.7.

Yes, I already seen that - This article applies to Direct attached HDD drives.

- but you still can not create virtual native 4k disks - which would be necessary to play with 4k images

BR & THX!

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

@zito

Have you tried doing a physical to virtual (P2V) conversion to see if this helps? So converting the backups to VMDK, then adding these to a virtual machine on ESXi.

...not s much!
Generally, I would warn everyone against using Advanced Format (4k) VHDX in hyper-v :\
I do not know who and why did such nasty vhdx at this station, but should not do this!

I tried P2V-ing with vConverter and I get error like ~ "on source and destination disks, sector size should be the same" (*sector*, not cluster).

Later on I will try to V2V by StarWind.

BR

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

@zito

What about trying the P2V option in System Recovery - have you tried that?

No, sorry - I have no permission of my superior to install SSR on this system directly. Only offline SDR.

I will try later on the backup instance.
I will let you know.

P2V in System Recovery?

no way !

the message you get when you try to P2V-ing from SSR:
the image of 4k sectors *can not* be converted to anything other than vhdx!

so, in general:
SSR from system level can do nothing more then SSR booting from SDR....?

BR

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

@zito

Can you provide a screenshot of that message please.

hmmmm....... why ?problemy z dyskami 4k 1 - b.jpg

 

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

@zito

Thanks for sharing this. I'm looking into why this is not supported, will get back to you as soon as I can.

criley
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited

@zito

I'm still waiting for confirmation on this. However, have you tried this yet?

Using the VSR recovery disk, it is possible to perform a restore using the .vhdx file as the source file that you are restoring from (when performing the restore, select the dropdown arrow next to Files of type to select this option).

I've not tried this myself, just thought I would mention this possible option to the situation you are in.

hi....

Now we know that:
when one use 4k source (no matter if image or vhdx) there is possible to perform a restore but *only* to the 4k-type destination... so:
1/this dependence is not generally known, 2/reduces portability of images and 3/vmware (in contrast to hyper-v) does not support native (AF) 4k disks.

Strongly proposes to do some testing by yourself.

I am looking forward the information from you, but without the hope because,
- in my opinion - it is not possible to perform [4k->512e] at all...

br