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Server Backup Drive almost full - The volume shadow copy operation failed with error 0x800423F3 RRS feed

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    Hi all

    I can see a few threads on server backups but not one that is the same as my problem, apologies if this is a repeat but my server backup drive is almost full and I am now getting error messages.

    I have 3 physical drives - 250GB for system, 1TB for shared files, client backups and 1TB for server backups. The files drive is about half full and the server backup drive has 9.4GB free space left.

    Server backups have run ok for months; I was getting disk warnings for months - the list of available backups only goes back to 6/1/12 but it has run successfully every night since then until last night when all the drives to be backed up failed with "The volume shadow copy operation failed with error 0x800423F3".

    Whats the deal with that error? 
    Is WHS2011 meant to tidy up server backups as it goes, or was this a problem waiting to happen as the drive got full? 
    What can I do to sort out this problem?

    Many thanks :)

    K 
    Tuesday, February 28, 2012 9:43 AM

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    Hmm - would have been better to have posted on the WHS2011 forum!

    Yes, generally WHS2011 cleans up old backups when it starts to run out of space. I say "generally" because there have been reports of it not happening (cue response from GeoffC1) but it's always worked for me - search the WHS2011 forum for lots of discussion. However, your symptoms don't see consistent with what I have seen before - have you run chkdsk /r on your server disks (both data/OS and backup)?

    Phil P.S. If you find my comment helpful or if it answers your question, please mark it as such.

    Tuesday, February 28, 2012 7:06 PM
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    Ooops I thought this was the right place, sorry; can this thread be moved to the right place?

    I think generally it has been cleaning them up, as the hard drive almost full alert has been around for ages.  I use the Home Server Smart 2012 application and it reports all my drives as healthy.  Should I still run chkdsk /r?  If so should I run this from a command prompt with the server os running?

    Thanks

    Tuesday, February 28, 2012 7:55 PM
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    Yes, that's fine. It will tell you it will take shared folders off line and the OS drive will be checked on a re-boot.

    Alternatively you can run it from the Dashboard in the Hard Drives tab, View Hard Drive Properties and then Check & Repair, Check and Automatically repair. Switch off server backups before doing the server backup disk.

    Note that if there is a real disk problem you may loose some data.

    Phil P.S. If you find my comment helpful or if it answers your question, please mark it as such.


    Tuesday, February 28, 2012 9:38 PM
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    Hi,

    Volume Shadow copies require enough free space to be created. If this is not given, they will fail.

    The size of the backup database is determined by the size of the different data clusters stored in the backup. If you save a lot of changing stuff, some better filled client PCs or whatever and keep this stuff for a while, there is not much you can delete from the backups or a cleanup would remove.

    Way possible for you would be to add a 2 TB disk and move the backups to that disk. If the growth goes on, you may have to exclude the folder from server backups, since the total size of a server backup may not be larger than 2 TB in total.

    On one of my old style home servers the backup database is larger than 3 TB (the old WHS could integrate multiple disks, but did not offer a server backup as of today).

    Best greetings
    Olaf


    Tuesday, February 28, 2012 11:44 PM
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    I didn't find time to look at this last night before the server backup ran, and last night it ran fine - space is down to 6GB now but no errors.  Will see what happens... 

    Cheers

    Wednesday, February 29, 2012 9:37 AM