Inefficient Agent behaviour in Windows file server failover cluster

[fnRyanG]

I have a slightly unique setup which is proving problematic, using the Veeam agent to back up a large number of volumes under different jobs on the same failover cluster.

I have a 4-node failover cluster running file shares, on over 70 different volumes. I need each volume backed up under a different backup job to segment data and apply different retention policies.

The problem I have is that the backup window has gotten huge over time, as the jobs sit idle for hours waiting to be able to do their processing on every node in the cluster.

Even if the volume to be backed up does not exist on the cluster node, it still has to wait for the node to free up, then creates a VSS snapshot, and completes a few other steps before realising there is nothing to back up on that cluster node, and unlocking it again for another job to run on it.

Ideally there would be a quick path or volume check to confirm the volume exists before creating VSS snapshots etc. so the agent can be freed up quickly if the volume is not present, reducing overhead.

Is there any way this can be improved?