Block-Level Restores

You can perform a file-level or a volume-level restore from a block-level backup.

The Job Results directory stores the result files that are created when a restore job is initiated. You must restart the Commvault services whenever you change the Job Results directory; otherwise, restore jobs fail because they continue to access the older Job Results directory.

High-Level Process for Block-Level Restores

1. If you are performing a volume-level browse and restore, the entire volume is restored.

2. If you are performing a file-level browse and restore, the following operations occur:

   • Depending on whether the metadata collection was enabled during backup, one of the following browse methods is selected if you perform a browse from the backup copy:

     • If metadata collection was enabled, a browse from the index is initiated.

       Note: We recommend that you use the metadata collection option with caution because it might affect block-level backup performance.

     • If metadata collection was disabled, a live browse is initiated. For more information about live browse, see Configuring Live Browse on AIX, Linux, and Solaris.

   • A browse from the index is initiated only when metadata collection was enabled if you perform a browse from the snapshot copy.

   • The selected files and folders are restored.

Multi-Stream and Multi-Node Restores

By default, block-level restore operation uses a single stream. For faster restore operations, you can configure the restore operation to use multiple streams, and you can define alternate data paths. For more information, see GridStor® (Alternate Data Paths) - Overview.

By default, block-level restore operation uses a single node when you perform restores to NFS-mounted file systems. For faster restore operations, you can configure the restore operation to use multiple nodes, and you can define alternate data paths. For more information, see GridStor® (Alternate Data Paths) - Overview.

If you want to perform restores to distributed file systems or to network file systems such as NFS-mounted file systems that are mounted across multiple computers, use multiple nodes.

Note: You cannot use multiple streams and multiple nodes for restore operations on clients with only File System Core package installed (Laptop Backup clients).

Supported File Systems for File-level Restores