Slow VSS snapshot of workstation using agent

[robnicholsonmalt]

Is it normal for it the VSS snapshot to take a long time to create when backing up a Windows 10 workstation? My PC/workstation takes between 15 and 30 minutes. It doesn't report any errors, just takes a long time. It's backing up a couple of folders from the E: drive with quite a few documents. This files backup runs every two hours. I run a separate job every evening to backup the OS drive and that creates the snapshot in about 30 seconds.

[Dima P.]

Hi Rob,

Please check if backup throttling is enabled or not? It affects the read performance, so backup files might be created slower.

Additionally, small Balrog may affect the performance of this machine

[robnicholsonmalt]

It could be something to do with the VMs running on the workstation but creating my own snapshot using the following PowerShell takes a couple of minutes:

Code: Select all

$ShadowCopy = (Get-WmiObject -List Win32_ShadowCopy).Create("E:\", "ClientAccessible")

[robnicholsonmalt]

Yes, could quite well be Balrogs. I've backed up a Windows 10 VM running on the same PC and that doesn't take long to do the snapshot either.

[robnicholsonmalt]

If Balrogs = virtual machines, then the answer is yes. This is resource monitor during the snapshot - it's flushing lots of VM workstation related files to disk to be consistent. I wonder if a file share backup would be quicker?

[Dima P.]

Rob,

Thanks for sharing the investigation results! File share backup indeed can be performed without VSS (so backup wont be affected by such VSS flush activity), however the job will skip all the locked files.