In our Syneto Vocabulary, we talk about popular IT terms and explain our favourite concepts as simple as possible. We have already discussed the importance of Disaster Recovery and Operational Recovery and we have mentioned that Syneto’s approach to offering fast operational recovery is file-level restore. But what exactly is file-level restore?

What is file-level restore?

File-level restore, also known as granular restore or granular file recovery, provides a way to access and then restore individual data/files from within virtual machine snapshots or backups.

This operation allows the recovery of particular data from the VM, without having to restore/recover the entire VM. This approach makes the recovery process easier, faster and more efficient. For example, file-level restore can help revert to an older (backed up) version of a file, in case the file is somehow damaged, deleted or inaccurate.

When working with a solution that has file-level restore capabilities, users can:

• Find and then download any specific file in their browser
• Make the file available as an ISO which can then be mounted in another VM.

Syneto’s approach to file-level restore

Syneto has embraced file-level restore as a means to ensure that our users can achieve fast and reliable operational recovery. SynetoOS 4.3 deploys a special File Restore VM called Luna – an OS designed by Syneto software engineers, which can look inside VMs (VMDKs) and mount Windows filesystems.

For more information, please see our detailed article dedicated to SynetoOS 4.3, here.