Windows Server 2012 R2 Backup to thin provision iSCSI fails: error code 0x80780049

Volume backups succeed with 1.13 GiB of data.

However, backups fail on the same volume when I increase the data to 50.2 GiB.

The target volume is a thinly provisioned 1 TiB iSCSI drive that WBAdmin formatted and dedicated entirely for backups. It takes WBAdmin an unusually long time (tens of minutes) to quickly format the drive. Yet data transfers fairly quickly: the 1.13 GiB backup completes in 1 minute.

During backup, WBAdmin snap-in reports transfer complete and compacting begin: compact stays 0% for a minute or so, jumps to 6%, stays for another couple of minutes, fails. I think it's timing out.

I've tried backups with and without deduplication, small (1.13 GiB) or large (96.86 GiB): large backups fail regardless of deduplication, small backups succeed regardless of deduplication. Only size seems to matter.

Backup Source

  • Physical data: 50.2 GiB (deduplicated)
  • Logical data: 96.86 GiB
  • Volume: 256 GiB
  • File system: NTFS
  • Allocation unit size: 16 KiB
  • Storage device: locally attached hard drive

Backup Target

  • Volume: 1 TiB
  • File system: NTFS
  • Allocation unit size: 4 KiB (WBAdmin defaults)
  • Storage device: thinly provisioned iSCSI

Event Log

Log Name:      Microsoft-Windows-Backup

Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Backup
Date:          8/29/2015 10:21:35 PM
Event ID:      5
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      
User:          SYSTEM
Computer:      ctu-testvm
Description:
The backup operation that started at '2015-08-30T01:00:04.242823700Z' has failed with following error code '0x80780049' (None of the items included in backup were backed up.). Please review the event details for a solution, and then rerun the backup operation once the issue is resolved.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Backup" Guid="{1DB28F2E-8F80-4027-8C5A-A11F7F10F62D}" />
    <EventID>5</EventID>
    <Version>3</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x4000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2015-08-30T02:21:35.117902000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>144</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="1784" ThreadID="3648" />
    <Channel>Microsoft-Windows-Backup</Channel>
    <Computer>ctu-testvm</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="BackupTemplateID">{F17F4B95-4214-4706-8D56-0F1BB0F9288F}</Data>
    <Data Name="HRESULT">0x80780049</Data>
    <Data Name="DetailedHRESULT">0x0</Data>
    <Data Name="ErrorMessage">%%2155348041</Data>
    <Data Name="BackupState">12</Data>
    <Data Name="BackupTime">2015-08-30T01:00:04.242823700Z</Data>
    <Data Name="BackupTarget">ctu-tes 2015_08_29 18:25 DISK_01</Data>
    <Data Name="NumOfVolumes">1</Data>
    <Data Name="VolumesInfo">&lt;VolumeInfo&gt;&lt;VolumeInfoItem Name="D:" OriginalAccessPath="D:" State="17" HResult="-2139618991" DetailedHResult="-2147024865" PreviousState="9" IsCritical="0" IsIncremental="0" BlockLevel="1" HasFiles="0" HasSystemState="0" IsCompacted="1" IsPruned="0" IsRecreateVhd="0" FullBackupReason="2" DataTransferred="104003403776" NumUnreadableBytes="0" TotalSize="104003403776" TotalNoOfFiles="0" Flags="8200" BackupTypeDetermined="1" SSBTotalNoOfFiles="0" SSBTotalSizeOnDisk="0" /&gt;&lt;/VolumeInfo&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="SourceSnapStartTime">2015-08-30T01:00:04.242823700Z</Data>
    <Data Name="SourceSnapEndTime">2015-08-30T01:00:09.712054300Z</Data>
    <Data Name="PrepareBackupStartTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;Time Time="2015-08-30T01:00:10.820Z" /&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="PrepareBackupEndTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;Time Time="2015-08-30T01:00:10.961Z" /&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="BackupWriteStartTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;Time Time="2015-08-30T01:00:10.961Z" /&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="BackupWriteEndTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;Time Time="2015-08-30T02:20:34.289Z" /&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="TargetSnapStartTime">1601-01-01T00:00:00.000000000Z</Data>
    <Data Name="TargetSnapEndTime">1601-01-01T00:00:00.000000000Z</Data>
    <Data Name="DVDFormatStartTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="DVDFormatEndTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="MediaVerifyStartTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="MediaVerifyEndTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="BackupPreviousState">17</Data>
    <Data Name="ComponentStatus">&lt;ComponentStatus&gt;&lt;/ComponentStatus&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="ComponentInfo">&lt;ComponentInfo&gt;&lt;/ComponentInfo&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="SSBEnumerateStartTime">1601-01-01T00:00:00.000000000Z</Data>
    <Data Name="SSBEnumerateEndTime">1601-01-01T00:00:00.000000000Z</Data>
    <Data Name="SSBVhdCreationStartTime">1601-01-01T00:00:00.000000000Z</Data>
    <Data Name="SSBVhdCreationEndTime">1601-01-01T00:00:00.000000000Z</Data>
    <Data Name="SSBBackupStartTime">1601-01-01T00:00:00.000000000Z</Data>
    <Data Name="SSBBackupEndTime">1601-01-01T00:00:00.000000000Z</Data>
    <Data Name="SystemStateBackup">&lt;SystemState IsPresent="0" HResult="0" DetailedHResult="0" /&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="BMR">&lt;BMR IsPresent="0" HResult="0" DetailedHResult="0" /&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="VssFullBackup">true</Data>
    <Data Name="UserInputBMR">false</Data>
    <Data Name="UserInputSSB">false</Data>
    <Data Name="BackupSuccessLogPath">C:\Windows\Logs\WindowsServerBackup\Backup-30-08-2015_01-00-04.log</Data>
    <Data Name="BackupFailureLogPath">C:\Windows\Logs\WindowsServerBackup\Backup_Error-30-08-2015_01-00-04.log</Data>
    <Data Name="EnumerateBackupStartTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;Time Time="1601-01-01T00:00:00.000Z" /&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="EnumerateBackupEndTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;Time Time="1601-01-01T00:00:00.000Z" /&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="PruneBackupStartTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;Time Time="1601-01-01T00:00:00.000Z" /&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="PruneBackupEndTime">&lt;TimesList&gt;&lt;Time Time="1601-01-01T00:00:00.000Z" /&gt;&lt;/TimesList&gt;</Data>
    <Data Name="BackupFlags">0x8</Data>
    <Data Name="ComponentInfoSummary">&lt;ComponentInfoSummary ComponentInfoArrayPresent="1" TotalComponents="0" SucceededComponents="0" /&gt;</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

C:\Windows\Logs\WindowsServerBackup\Backup-30-08-2015_01-00-04.log

Backup of volume D: succeeded.

C:\Windows\Logs\WindowsServerBackup\Backup_Error-30-08-2015_01-00-04.log: blank

Anyone know what's going wrong and what to do?




  • Edited by Luis Marsano Tuesday, September 08, 2015 4:00 AM narrow down problem
August 30th, 2015 3:46am

Hi there,

did you also try this?

Link

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August 30th, 2015 4:51pm

Unfortunately, I don't think it applies: the knowledge base article says to get it through Windows Update, and the server is already current with all updates.

The server also isn't a Hyper-V host. Apparently, WBAdmin stores its backups in VHDs, hence the error message.

Thanks for the thought, though!
August 30th, 2015 7:33pm

Hi,

As the backup target is a thin iSCSI drive, and it take a long time in format.

From the error message it seems that the issue is related to the backup target - please test to manually reformat it and store a large file onto it directly instead of using Windows Server Backup. Copy a file larger than 50GB onto it to see if it is the cause of the issue.

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September 1st, 2015 8:46am

Seems to go okay.

Here's some shell output

Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-Partition -DiskNumber 2 -PartitionNumber 2 | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter e
PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-Volume e
DriveLetter       FileSystemLabel  FileSystem       DriveType        HealthStatus        SizeRemaining             Size
-----------       ---------------  ----------       ---------        ------------        -------------             ----
E                 backup           NTFS             Fixed            Healthy                 506.35 GB        511.87 GB
PS C:\Windows\system32> sl d:
PS D:\> New-Item -Type directory test
    Directory: D:\
Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
----                -------------     ------ ----
d----          9/1/2015   8:24 PM            test
PS D:\> fsutil.exe file createnew .\test\test (51GB)
File D:\test\test is created
PS D:\> ($hash = Get-FileHash -Algorithm MD5 .\test\test)
Algorithm       Hash                                                                   Path
---------       ----                                                                   ----
MD5             12C73049C66B3139C0EC9EF218D22A97                                       D:\test\test
PS D:\> Robocopy.exe /j /copyall /eta .\test e:\
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ROBOCOPY     ::     Robust File Copy for Windows
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Started : Tuesday, September 1, 2015 8:36:08 PM
   Source : D:\test\
     Dest : e:\
    Files : *.*
  Options : *.* /COPYALL /J /ETA /R:1000000 /W:30
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                           1    D:\test\
        *EXTRA Dir        -1    e:\System Volume Information\
100%        New File              51.0 g        test
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
               Total    Copied   Skipped  Mismatch    FAILED    Extras
    Dirs :         1         0         0         0         0         1
   Files :         1         1         0         0         0         0
   Bytes :  51.000 g  51.000 g         0         0         0         0
   Times :   0:21:24   0:21:24                       0:00:00   0:00:00
   Speed :            42620077 Bytes/sec.
   Speed :            2438.740 MegaBytes/min.
   Ended : Tuesday, September 1, 2015 8:57:33 PM
PS D:\> ($newHash = Get-FileHash -Algorithm MD5 -Path e:\test).Hash -eq $hash.Hash
True

  • Edited by Luis Marsano Thursday, September 03, 2015 12:39 AM
September 2nd, 2015 1:53am

I've also tried backing up to a locally attached hard drive: same problem.

Any suggestions?

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
September 3rd, 2015 7:03pm

I've seen this what I typically do is wipe the existing backups, because the windows backups are essentially large vhd files I've heard theories that if the file gets to fragmented or low on disk space you will have this problem. I delete backups and process a manual full backup.
September 3rd, 2015 8:21pm

Thank you.

I think I've identified the problem: thin provisioning.

I read a guide recommending static instead of dynamic VHD(X)s as remote backup targets, because dynamic doesn't work.

Since dynamic is basically thin provisioning, this made me wonder if Windows Server Backup can handle thin provisioning at all.

Apparently not: backup to an otherwise identical thick provisioned iSCSI works!

Does anyone have backups to thin provisioned storage work?

This might be a Windows Backup defect.

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September 5th, 2015 4:05am

Nevermind: backups are failing again, same error as before.
September 14th, 2015 6:47pm

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