1. A method of restoring virtual machines in a networked data storage system comprising: receiving at one or more computing devices comprising computer hardware, an indication that a virtual machine placeholder associated with a virtual machine has been accessed, wherein: the virtual machine placeholder is created on one or more primary storage devices, and the virtual machine is deleted from the one or more primary storage devices, during one or more backups that copied data associated with the virtual machine from the primary storage subsystem to the secondary storage subsystem, the virtual machine placeholder on the one or more primary storage devices is recognized as the virtual machine by one or more virtualization applications, and the virtual machine placeholder comprises information usable in restoring the virtual machine from the one or more secondary storage devices to the one or more primary storage devices; and in response to receiving the indication that the virtual machine placeholder has been accessed, instructing the one or more computing devices comprising computer hardware to restore at least a portion of the virtual machine and the associated data from the one or more secondary storage devices to the one or more primary storage devices.