Backup fails with VSS error

[tape_monkey1]

I am backing up a large (~3 TB) file server.  I am able to get a full backup over the weekend, but I've been having more and more problems getting a good differentiual backup during the week.  The error I get is as follows:

Snapshot Technology: Initialization failure on: "\ReplaceServerName\System?State". Snapshot technology used: Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).
V-79-10000-11230 - VSS Snapshot error. Unable to get minimum quiet time for physical volumes. Reduce...
 

The strange thing here is that in my job for this server, I have disabled the Advanced Open File option completely, so I don't see why it would be performing a VSS snapshot.  Any ideas?

[Colin_Weaver]

VSS only being used for Open File backups has been a thing of the past for a while now - VSS Snapshots are used for nearly all backup operations on Windows servers - including those for Exchange, SQL, etc.

Obviously we use VSS, it is not specifically our technology which means troubleshooting when it goes wrong is down to looking at event logs and using VSSADMIN commands and then researching Microosft's documentation in parallel with ours.

[m_defender007]

1. Identify which application or layer caused the issue. From the VSS event it is evident that the issue is caused by Hyper-V error.

2. Analyze events belonging to the application to understand the root cause. Upon checking the Hyper-V application event logs found at Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\Hyper-V-VMMS, the following warning event is present:

   Failed to create the backup of virtual machine 'TestVM'. (Virtual machine ID XXXX)
   

3. Identify which application or layer caused the issue. From the Hyper-V event it is evident that the issue is caused by a virtual machine named TestVM.

4. Analyze events belonging to the application to understand the root cause. Upon checking the application event logs inside the guest, TestVM, the following VSS event is found: There is not enough disk space to create the volume shadow copy on the storage location. Make sure that, for all volumes to be backup up, the minimum required disk space for shadow copy creation is available. This applies to both the backup storage destination and volumes included in the backup. If this occurs, besure that the following minimum requirements are met:

   For volumes less than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 50 megabytes of free space. For volumes more than 500 megabytes, the minimum is 320 megabytes of free space. It is recommended that least 1 gigabyte of free disk space on each volume if the volume size is more than 1 gigabyte.

5. Correct the problem. The above error indicates that freeing up space on the physical volume hosting TestVM will solve the issue.