Converting Disk from RAW to QCOW2 to Allow For Incremental Backup
| KB ID: | 4345 |
| Product: | Veeam Backup for Red Hat Virtualization |
| Published: | 2022-08-31 |
| Last Modified: | 2022-08-31 |
Purpose
This article documents how to convert a Disk from RAW to QCOW2, allowing Veeam Backup for Red Hat Virtualization to create an incremental backup of the disk.
As documented in the Veeam Backup for Red Hat Virtualization User Guide, Incremental Backup requires that "the disk is formatted in QCOW2 format."
Solution
Starting with oVirt version 4.5, RHV REST API can be used to convert a RAW disk to QCOW2 format.
For more information, review: oVirt REST API documentation - disk - convert POST
Example API request:
curl \ --cacert '/etc/pki/ovirt-engine/ca.pem' \ --user 'admin@internal:mypassword' \ --request POST \ --header 'Version: 4' \ --header 'Content-Type: application/xml' \ --header 'Accept: application/xml' \ --data ' <action> <disk> <sparse>true</sparse> <format>cow</format> </disk> </action> ' \ https://<myengine.example.com>/ovirt-engine/api/disks/<disk id>/convert
Note:
- To determine the disk id, in the RHV Administration portal, navigate to Storage > Disks.
- The operation will be processed in the background.
- The conversion time depends on the disk size.
- To check whether the disk format has been changed, you can send a GET request in the following format:
https://<myengine.example.com>/ovirt-engine/api/disks/<disk id>
More information
As an alternate way to convert the disks, back up the VM that has RAW disks using Veeam Backup for Red Hat Virtualization and then restore the VM disks in the QCOW2 format.
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