HCI Recovery Decoded: Reverting Your Live VM Safely Using "Overwrite the Existing One
  

George Fady Lv2Posted 2026-Jul-16 18:15

We’ve all been there: you install a new application or apply a patch to a critical production VM, only for everything to break. You need to undo the damage immediately, roll back to yesterday's healthy state, and keep the exact same VM without cloning or creating redundant clutter.
For an in-place rollback, Sangfor HCI provides the "Overwrite the existing one" recovery option. While the warning "original VM will be deleted" can look scary, understanding how it behaves under the hood will give you the confidence to use it safely.
How It Works Under the Hood
When you select "Overwrite the existing one", the hypervisor performs a clean swap:
  • It gracefully shuts down the currently running VM.
  • It deletes the current virtual disks (which contain today's corrupted changes).
  • It maps the clean, healthy virtual disk state from your selected backup point (e.g., yesterday) back to the VM.

The Pros and Cons (What is Saved vs. What is Changed)
  • Preserved (Zero Identity Loss): Your VM's hardware identity—including the VMID, UUID, and MAC address—remains exactly the same. This means you won’t break any OS licenses or database configurations tied to hardware IDs. Your network configurations and IP settings are also fully preserved.
  • Deleted: All existing manual snapshots on this VM will be cleared out during the overwrite.
  • Disk Allocation Change: To speed up restoration, the recovered disk defaults to Thin Provisioning. This can cause a temporary dip in I/O performance.

Post-Recovery Optimization Steps
To restore your VM to yesterday's state and bring its storage performance back to 100%, follow this workflow:
  • Revert the VM: Go to your VM's backup details, choose your restore point from yesterday, select Overwrite the existing one, and confirm.
  • Re-allocate the Disk: Once the recovery finishes, do not forget to restore your storage performance! Go to the VM settings (More > Edit > Disk), locate your virtual disk, and manually change the disk allocation mode from Thin Provisioning back to Pre-allocated.

Support Tip: If you accidentally overwrite the wrong state, don’t panic! Sangfor technical support can temporarily retrieve overwritten VM states within 30 days before they are permanently purged.

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