Can UrBackup not backup live VHDX files?

1

I am backing up a Windows Server belonging to a new client of mine. I have not yet reverse-engineered all the configurations. It hosts, from what I can tell, two Windows VMs.

Recently I received this emailed notification:

ERROR: Client calculated hash of "/backups/VITA-VH1/260921-1249/D/Hyper-V/VITA-VDC1/Virtual Hard DIsks/VITA-VDC1_C_DYN.vhdx" differs from server calculated hash. This may be caused by a bug or by random bit flips on the client or server hard disk. Failing backup. (Hash: tree-sparse, client hash: Gg/MJLL+xk7J+31YBhnHHYBlIA1Y32bqZcl9qJwQzm7mNs/SSCKUAO6oDNb74O0VOwP8cvQdnLey7Mzdvd1TrQ==, server hash: 8XGlCblDkVELwQWyihnmqP/Hw/VBloiGPPXq11gF6vD8b7RidN+OemR9V5EwL9UBio1bsT8YqoIDCtYpn76jFQ==)
ERROR: Error informing client about metadata stream end. Errorcode: TIMEOUT (2)
ERROR: Fatal error during backup. Backup not completed

I am wondering, whether this is because the VM to which that VHDX file belongs is running, and therefore the file is not static.

Should I just exclude that file from the backup and install the backup client on each of the VMs, instead?

2

Usually works… Could you perhaps tell a bit more about your environment. For example are you using an unusual VSS provider?

3

Unfortunately, I don’t have much information about how everything is configured, yet. I have not had enough time reverse-engineering the configuration intent.

I am thinking that the VMs hosted by Windows Server’s built-in Hyper-V. Are you saying that upon trying to backup the file, UrBackup requests a snapshot of the file from the Volume Snapshot Service? That would make sense to me. However, I am not sure, whether it is working correctly.

There is still the possibility that the drives generate errors. However, when I ran the CHKDSK command on the volume housing the VHDX files, it found nothing.

I am not on site and have not yet configured a VPN connection to the client’s LAN, yet. I will report back, when I find out more.

4

Is this a full or incremental backup?

5

It was a full file backup. I placed the two VHDX files in the exception list, and now incremental files updates contain 0 bytes.

Probably not the right approach!

6

Your backups are going to be huge, how large is each VHDX file? how large is the Windows server hosting the machines?

We backup the actual virtual servers, however we also dont use Windows to host the virtual server either we have dedicated hardware that would be used to boot the recovery USB then recover the virtual server back in to a new virtual server host (which maybe new hardware if its failed).

7

I think, I am going to try installing UrBackup on each of the VMs. I will first have to figure out how to do a IPSEC VPN connection to the firewall from my Mac, so I don’t have to be at the client’s location, while playing around with all this.

8

What sizes are the VMs?