Instant Access as a File History Alternative

Recovery through the use of Instant Access provides for granular file-level restore, especially when file history data is not available. File history may be disabled in a backup job for performance reasons, or if file history generation is not supported, such as with Windows 2012 ReFS volumes.

To enable an Instant Access Restore of a Block backup instance in the management console:

1. Select the backup instance to access by doing the following:

     a. On the management console, click **Restore**, and then click **Block** in the task pane.
   
     b. Expand the restore source tree until you identify the specific backup instance to access.
   
     c. Expand the backup instance as if the File History were available.

2. A dialog box prompts you to browse the data from an actual snapshot because the file-level data is not available. Click OK.

3. The Proxy Node for Browsing dialog box displays. Select a proxy node in the Node List drop-down menu.

Note. If you are using Instant Access to perform a file-level restore of a node using Windows Server 2012 with ReFS, the proxy node you select in this menu must be a node that is running Windows Server 2012 with ReFS. For more information on ReFS support for file history, see Microsoft ReFS Support.

1. Click OK to load the backup instance onto the selected proxy node.