Is there a way to disable using Shadow Copy for File Backups? I’m trying to create a file backup of about 80gb of data from a folder on a 100TB volume. I’m getting shadow copy errors. Microsoft says Shadow Copy doesn’t work on volumes greater than 64TB and will throw errors, so I’m hoping there is a way to get UrBackup to do a straight file copy instead of Shadow Copies.
Thanks…
It does fall back in some scenarios to directly reading the files. I just never tested this with 100TB volumes, so might not fall back in this scenario… Could you try if it works?
One trick might be to add the path as UNC path like \\localhost\C$.
What version of Windows?
Is shadow copy on? (simple way to confirm it)
Hi, I tried changing to a UNC path, as suggested. I’m getting fewer errors but it still says that the backup “Completed with Issues”. Here’s what’s in the Log…
|Info|11/03/23 14:03|Starting unscheduled full file backup…|
| — | — | — |
|Warnings|11/03/23 14:05|Writer System Writer has failure state VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_BACKUP with error VSS_E_WRITERERROR_TIMEOUT. UrBackup will continue with the backup but the associated data may not be consistent.|
|Warnings|11/03/23 14:05|Writer WMI Writer has failure state VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_BACKUP with error VSS_E_WRITERERROR_TIMEOUT. UrBackup will continue with the backup but the associated data may not be consistent.|
|Errors|11/03/23 14:05|backupcom->AddToSnapshotSet(&(Server->ConvertToWchar(selected_vols[i])[0]), GUID_NULL, &additional_refs[i].volid) failed. VSS error code VSS_E_VOLUME_NOT_SUPPORTED|
|Errors|11/03/23 14:05|Creating snapshot of “Scripts_0” failed.|
|Info|11/03/23 14:05|Indexing of “Scripts_0” done. 492 filesystem lookups 0 db lookups and 0 db updates|
It seems to be backing up at least some of the files but I’m not sure if some are missing.
The “client” is Windows Server 2016. Yes, shadow copy is on but if you do a search, you will see that Microsoft doesn’t support shadow copy on volumes greater than 64TB. I’m not backing up the whole volume, just a couple of folders inside the volume.
How much space is allocated to VSS?
How is the 100Tb connected to the server?
Anything ive found seems to imply you cant use ANY image backup as it will do file copy only, although it seems some may attempt it… this sounds like an IOPS issue with either the format of the drive OR how VSS looks at the format, as 64Tb ive seen in NAS units when formatting disks as a limit (and is selectable when creating the disk, they cant however be migrated to another IOPS level once formatted, re-format is the only fix).
This seems like another Microsoft limit, such as the original 640Kb limit, who choose 64Tb as a drive limit?
Will UrBackup fall back to another method, i believe VSS was the only one for a disk image backup, if so then looks like it cant be backed up (according to the internet).
Interesting, when I run the command “vssadmin list shadowstorage”, I get “No items found that satisfy the query.” I guess maybe there is no shadow storage defined on this machine.
The 100TB is a hardware raid box connected to the server via a Fiber-Channel host bus adapter card.
I’m only trying to do a file backup on a few folders, not an image backup. But the errors concern me that it may not be backing up all the files. “Backup completed with issues”.
Does the system boot from this store or do you have a local drive C, if so you should have VSS running on drive C at least.
I had issues with file back ups when the VSS isnt working, ive had to increase the storage size to allow VSS to work, so it maybe your VSS is half installed and not working. I had a system with VSS set to 0% space, the file backup failed. Increased it to 10%, file backup worked.
For desktop OS to set that is under the Control Panel > System > [TAB] System Protection, not sure this is in the server OS
I tried enabling VSS on the C: drive but I still get the “Completed with Issues” message. But now the error in the log file is this:
| Errors | 11/05/23 08:33 | backupcom->AddToSnapshotSet(&(Server->ConvertToWchar(selected_vols[i])[0]), GUID_NULL, &additional_refs[i].volid) failed. VSS error code VSS_E_VOLUME_NOT_SUPPORTED |
|---|---|---|
| Errors | 11/05/23 08:33 | Creating snapshot of “Scripts_0” failed. |
The system has a normal C: drive and does not boot from the large raid array.
I think at this point the only problem is the error message?
There have been feature requests about removing that one before. Maybe some per backup path flag or something.
I don’t know. It would be great to know if there were skipped files. All I have to go on is that the “Backup completed with issues”. I don’t know if the backup is complete or if files have been left out. If the backup is not complete, then that pretty much rules out UrBackup for large volumes.
There are more issues here, i think the VSS on drive C needs to be fixed first, which appears to be more a standard Microsoft issue.
Maybe you missed a previous message but I enabled VSS on the C: drive and it seems to be fine. It’s the 100TB drive that is getting the backup issues.
Drive C is backing up ok?
What does the log show when it arrives at drive D to backup?
For years my drives were encrypted with TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt, which broke VSS for non-system drives. I also got this “Backup completed with issues” error, but apart from that (and probably consistency, since the backup was performed on the live non-shadowed volume), everything was backed up just fine.
The C: drive is doing an Image Backup and that is working fine.
The E: drive (that’s the big one) is doing a File Backup of 2 folders. That’s the one throwing errors. Here’s the full log of the File Backup:
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Starting scheduled incremental file backup… |
|---|---|---|
| Warnings | 11/07/23 08:36 | Writer System Writer has failure state VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_BACKUP with error VSS_E_WRITERERROR_TIMEOUT. UrBackup will continue with the backup but the associated data may not be consistent. |
| Warnings | 11/07/23 08:36 | Writer WMI Writer has failure state VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_BACKUP with error VSS_E_WRITERERROR_TIMEOUT. UrBackup will continue with the backup but the associated data may not be consistent. |
| Errors | 11/07/23 08:36 | backupcom->AddToSnapshotSet(&(Server->ConvertToWchar(selected_vols[i])[0]), GUID_NULL, &additional_refs[i].volid) failed. VSS error code VSS_E_VOLUME_NOT_SUPPORTED |
| Errors | 11/07/23 08:36 | Creating snapshot of “Scripts_0” failed. |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Indexing of “Scripts_0” done. 1 filesystem lookups 491 db lookups and 0 db updates |
| Warnings | 11/07/23 08:36 | Writer System Writer has failure state VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_BACKUP with error VSS_E_WRITERERROR_TIMEOUT. UrBackup will continue with the backup but the associated data may not be consistent. |
| Warnings | 11/07/23 08:36 | Writer WMI Writer has failure state VSS_WS_FAILED_AT_PREPARE_BACKUP with error VSS_E_WRITERERROR_TIMEOUT. UrBackup will continue with the backup but the associated data may not be consistent. |
| Errors | 11/07/23 08:36 | backupcom->AddToSnapshotSet(&(Server->ConvertToWchar(selected_vols[i])[0]), GUID_NULL, &additional_refs[i].volid) failed. VSS error code VSS_E_VOLUME_NOT_SUPPORTED |
| Errors | 11/07/23 08:36 | Creating snapshot of “000 Administrative_0” failed. |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Indexing of “000 Administrative_0” done. 1 filesystem lookups 5203 db lookups and 0 db updates |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Anvil: Loading file list… |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Anvil: Calculating file tree differences… |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Anvil: Calculating tree difference size… |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Anvil: Linking unchanged and loading new files… |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Referencing snapshot on “Anvil” for path “Scripts_0” failed: FAILED |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Referencing snapshot on “Anvil” for path “000 Administrative_0” failed: FAILED |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Waiting for file transfers… |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Waiting for file hashing and copying threads… |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Writing new file list… |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | All metadata was present |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:36 | Transferred 2.65366 MB - Average speed: 22.2605 MBit/s |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:37 | Time taken for backing up client Anvil: 40s |
| Info | 11/07/23 08:37 | Backup completed with issues |
Thanks for the help so far…
Seems to confirm it, does C, E has no VSS (as expected), not sure on the fix though
I guess I would be happy if UrBackup defaulted back to a standard file copy if VSS was not enabled, perhaps writing a warning to the Log file instead of an error. Then only reporting an error if the file copy failed due to the file being left open, locked or similar. That way an admin would know that the backup ran and only saw an error if a file couldn’t be backed up. Right now it seems impossible to know if a backup without VSS is complete or not.
Seems like will need the Devs to comment on this, i would think a check on if VSS exists before trying to backup.
The only way you can ever be sure of the consistency or otherwise of any backup is to do a test restore…
writing a warning to the Log file instead of an error
Microsoft’s VSS itself fails when URBACKUP tries to create the snapshot, these are the “Errors” in your log file.
URBACKUP is then issuing the ‘warning’ “UrBackup will continue with the backup but the associated data may not be consistent.”
The warning about consistency is because with a snapshot, you are effectively backing up everything at a single “point in time” - so whether a file is updated 10 seconds or 45 minutes after the snapshot is created for a one-hour backup, the backup contains the version of the file that existed at the time the snapshot was created - when you restore your data it will be as if you had turned your computer off at the time of the snapshot.
Without a snapshot, a file that gets backed up 45 minutes into an hour-long backup will have the data as it was 45 minutes into the backup. For many situations, this is perfectly adequate. But if you have multiple files that need to be “consistent” with each other, and they are being updated all the time, then you could have a problem.
It is not possible for a solution like URBACKUP to decide whether a backup without a snapshot is “consistent” or not, so it is perfectly reasonable to issue a warning.
If there was no warning, and then someone did a restore and inter-dependent files were inconsistent, then there would be someone here on the forums complaining about the backups not working properly…