Windows no longer includes backup software, so when users ask here for recommendations, we often mention Veeam–its free client will back up to a shared folder, which is enough for TrueNAS purposes. Since a backup you can’t restore is no good at all, I thought I’d report my recent experience using Veeam to restore a backup that was stored on my NAS.
Background
My Windows laptop’s SSD was full, so I bought a larger one to replace it. Web searching for how to migrate a Windows installation to a larger drive came up with lots of links, but all I found suffered from at least one of three problems: (1) They depended on commercial software; (2) they were very outdated; and/or (3) they were AI-generated slop. After some frustration with this state of affairs, I decided to just install the new drive and restore from backup.
Experience
When I installed the Veeam agent on my laptop, it encouraged me to create recovery media, which I did–it creates a USB stick with a minimal Windows installation, their own software, and any drivers that are necessary for your system. So I booted from that USB stick, Veeam recovery launched, I installed the drivers, connected to the network, logged into the share on the NAS, selected the backup, and restored. Restoring nearly 1 TB of data took about 18 hours. On reboot, the system came back up, just as before. The system partition had not been resized, it was the same size as before. I was able to resolve that with a gparted live USB, but creating one of those was rather more involved that it should have been.
Hits
- It worked. Fundamentally, that’s what a backup’s about: the ability to restore your data.
- While not as smooth as IMO it should have been (on which, more below), the restore was still a pretty straightforward process.
Misses
All of these are subordinate to the fact that the restore worked without errors, the system booted just fine, all the data was there, etc. But there were still some points that could have gone more smoothly:
- Partitioning. It’s going to be pretty common that you’ll be restoring to a device that’s a different size than the original, and Veeam doesn’t seem to deal with this at all (I have no idea how it’d have worked if I’d tried to restore to a smaller drive). So I was left with about 1 TB of unavailable space on the new drive, requiring me to use a different tool to move the recovery partition to the end, and then expand the main partition. Since that was the reason I was restoring to this device, kind of frustrating.
- The recovery media creation tool gives you the option to include drivers on that device, and if you choose that option (and IIRC it defaults to being selected), it will in fact include those drivers. So why does it not then load them automatically?
- The Wifi card in the laptop needed a driver. Click “add drivers,” find the device, click “load driver,” and it’s done–the driver was already available. So it’s easy enough–but if it’s that easy, why do I have to do it manually? If Veeam can tell that there’s a device that needs a driver, and it can also tell that it has that driver available, why not just load that driver and be done with it?
- Wifi network credentials weren’t saved–I needed to pick the network and log in.
- Neither was any information about the backup–I needed to tell it the backup was in a shared folder, enter the NAS address and share name (I was not able to “browse” for the NAS or the share), username and password, then choose the backup to restore.
Conclusion
It does the job, and it’s relatively painless. But it should make better use of the information it already has re: the system and the backup location.