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Using Veeam endpoint to back up my stablebit storage pool


jahilton2002

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Hi Guys,

 

I wanted to use Veeam endpoint to back up my stablebit drivepool.

 

However i get VSS errors and the back up fails. Is the backing up of pooled drives compatible with 3rd party back up solutions?

 

here's the error i get in Veeam (i understand that it isn't your product, just wanted to give you as much info as i can)

 

05/09/2015 11:22:04 :: Error: Failed to create snapshot: Backup job failed. Cannot create a shadow copy of the volumes containing writer's data. VSS asynchronous operation is not completed. Operation: [shadow copies commit]. Code: [0x80042306]. 
 

 

cheers in advance

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Veeam works by using VSS (as indicated by the error).

 

Unfortuantely, VSS doesn't work on the pool directly (due to the lack of low level documentation on how to implement it).

 

If you wish to backup the pool with Veeam, then the best option is to backup the pooled disks directly, rather than the pool.

 

Sorry.

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Just found this post as I had the same issue. 

 

+1 to any plan to resolve this.

 

Cheers,

Jon

 

 

Not really.

 

Implementing VSS isn't easy, even remotely.  It's a very low level file system feature, that Microsoft has absolutely no documentation about.  We would have to reverse engineer how it works, and extensively test it.  That's a significant time investment, and one that we aren't really in the position to make right now. 

 

 

As I've said above, the best bet is to backup the disks in the pool and not the pool directly.

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As I've said above, the best bet is to backup the disks in the pool and not the pool directly.

 

Wouldn't backing up the disks separately result in duplicated file copies as files are balanced amongst the pool?

 

Also I don't use file duplication but I assume that would be an issue as well?

 

Looks like I'll be better off looking for an alternative backup tool.

 

Cheers,

Jon

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Wouldn't backing up the disks separately result in duplicated file copies as files are balanced amongst the pool?

 

Also I don't use file duplication but I assume that would be an issue as well?

 

Looks like I'll be better off looking for an alternative backup tool.

 

Cheers,

Jon

 

 

You're not using Duplication, so no. 

 

Specifically, what the issue is here is that we don't support VSS. Why that's important? Well, because VSS is used to create a snapshot of the disk at a specific time. That way, even if you move files around, add new files or delete them during the backup, Veeam (and other products) backup the contents at that specific point in time.  

 

So even if the system is balancing at the time, it won't be a problem. 

 

 

As for duplication, if you are using that at all, Veeam states that it uses deduplication for the backups. So it shouldn't be an issue with duplication, as it should only store copies of the files once. 

 

 

So no reason to switch away from Veeam.  

However, I would recommend upgrading to the beta build if you do use Veeam (the 2.2.0.651 version), as there is a potential issue with Veeam that is fixed in that version.

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You're not using Duplication, so no. 

 

Specifically, what the issue is here is that we don't support VSS. Why that's important? Well, because VSS is used to create a snapshot of the disk at a specific time. That way, even if you move files around, add new files or delete them during the backup, Veeam (and other products) backup the contents at that specific point in time.  

 

So even if the system is balancing at the time, it won't be a problem. 

 

 

As for duplication, if you are using that at all, Veeam states that it uses deduplication for the backups. So it shouldn't be an issue with duplication, as it should only store copies of the files once. 

 

 

So no reason to switch away from Veeam.  

However, I would recommend upgrading to the beta build if you do use Veeam (the 2.2.0.651 version), as there is a potential issue with Veeam that is fixed in that version.

 

Hi drashna,

I posted this earlier in the thread that you helped me move from storage spaces to drivepool but may be this is a better location for the question. I have realized that veeam does not work with drivepool (VSS snapshot error) and based on this above thread is expected. So as you mentioned above, I changed veeam to volume backups of the physical drives with the expectation that veeam deduplicates. Unfortunately that didnt happen and instead of a 843 GB backup, i ended up with 1.7TB or close to that backup.

 

Before i drop veeam as incompatible with drivepool, I wanted to know if i should upgrade to the beta version of drivepool since you mention that it deals with veeam better and try again. Since the post is from february, is the beta version still better with veeam? thanks.

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Hi drashna,

Thank you. I changed to the beta version. Unfortunately it does not seem to make a difference. Veeam does not deduplicate drivepool drives/volumes. In other words if I include the two data drives i have (f and g, not the drive pool virtual drive E since that never works as you said above), then my backup size is 1.52TB. On the other hand if i only backup drive F (since the drive G is basically a duplicate made by drivepool) my backup file size is about 880TB. I started a tech support with veeam and they basically informed me that they dont work with third party software :"if there is any third party software that copies over those volumes, we can not guarantee the success of deduplication in that case due to the fact that we don't know how it goes about copying those files"

 

So on the one hand, one cant run a complete computer backup with veeam because of lack of vss and if you do run a volume backup of drives, then deduplication does not work.

 

Bottom Line:

Veeam endpoint and Stablebit drivepool not compatible :(

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