Avamar Bare Metal Restore physical to VM which drive capacity different

There's no option in BMR to shrink a backup to smaller disk. BMR is just a frontend for the avtar and diskpart commands. (log files generated will show the commands generated)

Can you shrink the D drive in Windows Disk Managment to smaller size and then back it up again with VSS?

The D drive is included in VSS because the Windows ASR component considers it critical - you probably have a service in Windows that starts from D drive. (documented in Avamar for Windows Client manual)

If you could unregister the service(s) and then take a VSS backup you would end up with only C drive in the VSS backup. Once you have restored the VSS backup and booted into the restored VM, you'll just need to restore the D drive with the Avamar client and re-register the services.

I have spanned 2 drives (one with 8TB and the another one 3TB) into one volume (total 11TB) but when restore it still giving same error. I have stuck in here almost few weeks and need someone to shed some light.

Spanned volume cannot be unspanned without destroying all data.

Try to exclude the D drive in your VSS backup. Since you are using a dynamic disks, the --exclude_non_critical_disks should exclude D drive in the VSS backup (unless any service is started from there as I wrote).

If you still can't restore the resulting VSS backup to Azure, you could try to restore it into a local VM, shrink the disk, back it up and try again.

If that doesn't work, you could also try Disk2VHD tool or Azure Migrate and bypass the BMR.

I have tried to exclude D drive from VSS but at the setting there it seems when exclude D drive will also exclude from windows file system ? 

@Sandtitz Anyway to do exclusion Drive D at this Option here ?

VSS settings shouldn't affect the File System backup:

Select VSS plugin from the drop down list.

Click the More button and type the exclude_non_critical_dynamic_disks to the attribute field and true into the value field. Press + button and save the changes.

In my earlier message I had mistyped the option as exclude_non_critical_disks which can be used only on the restore job.

NB: I have never had any need for these particular command line flags. They are listed in the Avamar for Windows Servers User Guide document, so check it out.

@Sandtitz I can't see any VSS plugin with the setting you mentioned above. 

@Benchpg 

As I wrote, you need to click the 'More' button down there on the right corner first.

@Sandtitz i always get this status when at this stage.

@Benchpg

I think that at this point you should contact Avamar support directly.
Avamar has hidden options known only to Avamar support personnel, so perhaps they could have a command line option that would help you there.

You could also look at other P2V tools that are more commonly used to server virtualization, such as
vCenter Converter, Disk2VHD, Azure Migrate.

When performing an Avamar Bare Metal Restore from a physical machine to a virtual machine with a different drive capacity, there are a few considerations to keep in mind.

First, you will need to ensure that the target VM has enough disk space to accommodate the restored data. If the target VM has a smaller capacity than the original physical machine, you may need to exclude some files or folders during the restore process to reduce the amount of data being restored.

Second, you may need to adjust the partition sizes and file systems during the restore process to match the new drive capacity. This can be done using a partitioning tool such as GParted or Disk Management in Windows.

Here are the general steps for performing an Avamar Bare Metal Restore from a physical machine to a virtual machine with a different drive capacity:

1. Create a new VM with the desired specifications, including the appropriate disk size.
2. Boot the VM using a bootable Avamar Bare Metal Restore ISO.
3. Follow the prompts to restore the backup image to the VM, selecting the appropriate backup image and destination disk.
4. During the restore process, exclude any files or folders that are not required on the target VM to reduce the amount of data being restored.
5. Once the restore process is complete, use a partitioning tool to adjust the partition sizes and file systems to match the new drive capacity.
6. Reboot the VM and verify that it is functioning properly.

Note that this process may be more complex if the target VM has a significantly different hardware configuration than the original physical machine, as drivers and hardware configurations may need to be updated or adjusted during the restore process.