Empty Folder(s) in Datastore after Replication job runs

When a replication job is ran, an empty folder is created in one of the datastores listed as the <Replica’s VM name>_#. 

The cause of this behavior is Veeam getting pointed to write to one datastore, while the replica VM itself is on a different datastore. When the job is pointed to a different location than the replication job is setup to process to, a folder gets created to hold the data on that datastore because it does not see anything there. Once it goes to write the data and work with the replica, it finds the correct location via the reference ID of the replica VM.

The solution to this is to verify the datastore location in VMware, and then edit the replication job to match this. After doing this, you can delete the empty folders, though it is highly advised to check each folder individually before deletion to verify they are in fact all empty. 

In the situation where the VM has been moved to a different standalone host (this does not apply when replicating to a cluster or vCenter) than it was specified, it is very likely that the replication will fail the first time, and when it is then mapped to the replication job via the Low Bandwidth Seeding options the job will be successful. The folders will then be created like in the above description, but files that are copied over via the NFC Connection Stream will be in those folders (The VMX, VMFX, NVRAM).
 
In this situation, make the above change to the replication job, but prior to deleting the folders, let the job run successfully once and make sure the original folder has it’s VMX, NVRAM, and VMFX files updated.