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Restore -> Insufficient space for caching

  • April 15, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 11 views
D
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Hi,
i try to restore from a VM (guest files and folders) and i get this message:
 

If i try to restore from a younger date it works fine.
What can i do?

Thanks
Dennis

Best answer by Paul G

Hi ​@Dennis,

Commvault does not index the data in a VM during a backup as this takes a long time and backups would take longer and VM's would run longer with an active snapshot. They used to do this years ago but nowadays this isn't done by default.

To browse the data, Commvault uses Live Browse which uses the data on backup storage and mounts it. The file system information is then read straight from the mounted disk. This is possible to do this with disk and cloud based backup storage. Commvault did not support this function for tape before as the medium is sequential and does not allow random reads which is needed for this operation. A few years ago, Commvault made this possible by automatically copying all data within the job to the job results directory on the Media Agent so that data can be read from the MA disk.

My guess is that your younger data is still on disk storage but the job you are browsing in the screenshot is only retained on a tape copy. This means all data for the job must be restored to the Media Agent before it can be browsed and you are running out of space.

The quickest solution would be to restore the disk to an existing VM where you can browse the restored disk and retrieve the file you need. Attaching a Disk to an Existing VMware VM

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Paul

    1 reply

    Paul G
    Explorer
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    • Paul GExplorer
    • Explorer
    • Answer
    • April 15, 2026

    Hi ​@Dennis,

    Commvault does not index the data in a VM during a backup as this takes a long time and backups would take longer and VM's would run longer with an active snapshot. They used to do this years ago but nowadays this isn't done by default.

    To browse the data, Commvault uses Live Browse which uses the data on backup storage and mounts it. The file system information is then read straight from the mounted disk. This is possible to do this with disk and cloud based backup storage. Commvault did not support this function for tape before as the medium is sequential and does not allow random reads which is needed for this operation. A few years ago, Commvault made this possible by automatically copying all data within the job to the job results directory on the Media Agent so that data can be read from the MA disk.

    My guess is that your younger data is still on disk storage but the job you are browsing in the screenshot is only retained on a tape copy. This means all data for the job must be restored to the Media Agent before it can be browsed and you are running out of space.

    The quickest solution would be to restore the disk to an existing VM where you can browse the restored disk and retrieve the file you need. Attaching a Disk to an Existing VMware VM

    Hope this helps.

    Kind regards,

    Paul

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