What you need to know about conversion

Supported virtual machine types

Conversion of a backup to a virtual machine can be done by the same agent that created the backup or by another agent.

To perform a conversion to VMware ESXi or Hyper-V, you need an ESXi or Hyper-V host and a backup agent (Agent for VMware or Agent for Hyper-V) that manages this host.

Conversion to VHDX files assumes that the files will be connected as virtual disks to a Hyper-V virtual machine.

The following table summarizes the virtual machine types that can be created by the agents:

VM type	Agent for VMware	Agent for Hyper-V	Agent for Windows	Agent for Linux	Agent for Mac
VMware ESXi	+	–	–	–	–
Microsoft Hyper-V	–	+	–	–	–
VMware Workstation	+	+	+	+	–
VHDX files	+	+	+	+	–

Limitations

Agent for Windows, Agent for VMware (Windows), and Agent for Hyper-V cannot convert backups stored on NFS.
Backups stored on NFS or on an SFTP server cannot be converted in a separate conversion plan.
Backups stored in Secure Zone can be converted only by the agent running on the same machine.
Backups that contain Linux logical volumes (LVM) can be converted only if they were created by Agent for VMware or Agent for Hyper-V, and are directed to the same hypervisor. Cross-hypervisor conversion is not supported.
When backups of a Windows machine are converted to VMware Workstation or VHDX files, the resulting virtual machine inherits the CPU type from the machine that performs the conversion. As a result, the corresponding CPU drivers are installed in the guest operating system. If started on a host with a different CPU type, the guest system displays a driver error. Update this driver manually.

Regular conversion to ESXi and Hyper-V vs. running a virtual machine from a backup

Both operations provide you with a virtual machine that can be started in seconds if the original machine fails.

Regular conversion takes CPU and memory resources. Files of the virtual machine constantly occupy space on the datastore (storage). This may be not practical if a production host is used for conversion. However, the virtual machine performance is limited only by the host resources.

In the second case, the resources are consumed only while the virtual machine is running. The datastore (storage) space is required only to keep changes to the virtual disks. However, the virtual machine may run slower, because the host does not access the virtual disks directly, but communicates with the agent that reads data from the backup. In addition, the virtual machine is temporary. Making the machine permanent is possible only for ESXi.