I have some files I want to pull out of a backup. I know I can't do that natively from the backup system, but I think I've got plenty of space as my disk images are small and I've got tons of free space on my Linode.

The backup I want to restore says "total size required 5245MB". My Linode has 9628MB unallocated/free space.

So I should be able to restore to my own Linode, mount the disk image I'm looking for, and copy the files.

But I'm wondering what happens when I press the "restore to this linode" button. Is it going to overwrite my existing disk images? Or will it somehow create copies (with new names?) within my Linode's free space?

Yep.


Nothing will be overwritten. You'll get a new set of disk images with the same names as the original but each prefixed with something like "Restore ####" where #### is the restoration job number. (I may have the exact prefix wrong, but there's definitely a prefix).

The new images will only be slightly larger than necessary to contain the files (so not the same as the sizes of the original images), and in total match the size shown on the restoration screen. But yes, they will be created out of your current free space. (The restore job won't let you pick a target Linode that doesn't have enough free space)

You can do the restoration while your current Linode is running, but you'll need to restart the Linode if you want to mount one of the restore images (after assigning it to a virtual device in your running Linode's profile).

If you can't afford the downtime, I'd suggest you create a new Linode (even if only for a very short period), then restore to that Linode and access the files there. After you delete the temporary Linode, any unused charges will be added back to your account to offset subsequent charges for your main Linode.

-- David

Thanks! That is exactly what I wanted to know.

I can certainly afford the downtime, it's no problem to add a mount point to one of the restore images and restart. Thank you so much for your quick and informative reply.