best way to backup thin provisioned ESXi VM (actual size vs provisioned size)

[craig5571]

hello,
I am a Vmware ESXi hobbyist. I know a little.. but this one question keeps perplexing me..
if i have a ESXi 7 VM provisioned to 100gb, but the actual space it uses is only like 5gb.
( the VM required the disk to be 100gb.. or it wouldn't install.. but this is just for lab use..)
Is there an easy way to create a backup where the size is the actual amount of space used ( in this case 5gb.. ?)

I have tried to read about Veeam and while there is a ton of info out there. if i don't know what i am looking at , its all greek to me...

thank you so much

 

[dswartz]

VEEAM normally requires vcenter server to do backups. If this is a linux or windows vm, go on their site and look for 'veeam agent for linux' or 'veeam agent for windows'. Those run on the VM itself, and can back up to a network share or 'local disk'. The backups will be compressed and de-duplicated.

 

[TRACKER]

you can use veeam even without vcenter server, it works perfect. keep in mind veeam is not free.

 

[dswartz]

Correct, I had misremembered that (vcenter). What it *does* require is the non-free version of esxi (I thought), since it uses the backup API. That said, the two agent utilities I mentioned *are* free.