Problem backing up a VM - Block size?

[AndyR]

HI all,

Currently trailing Veeam but I'm having problems backing up 1 particular VM.

This VM has 3 virtual disks in it (OS - 20gb), (Data1 - 100gb), (Data2 - 500gb). Now the OS and Data1 are located on one LUN with a 1mb block size, and the Data2 is on another LUN with a 2mb block size.

The error I get when trying to backup this VM is

Creating snapshot CreateSnapshot failed, vmRef "vm-138", timeout "1800000", snName "VEEAM BACKUP TEMPORARY SNAPSHOT", snDescription "Please do not delete this snapshot. It is being used by Veeam Backup.", memory "False", quiesce "True" Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine.

I've done some searching and it seems to be the block size difference causing the problem. If I can't change the LUN with the 1mb block size as would mean powering down to move 8 production VMs, then what other options would I have to be able to backup this VM each night?

Thanks,

Andy

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Andy,

The reason why you have the issue with one VM doesn't fully relate to VMFS block size. As regards to the exact error message you observe in the job's summary information, there are number of existing threads with the same issue, please have a look at those two for the answer:

http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.p ... ne.#p10212
http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.p ... ine.#p8931

Having said that, if you're doing backups of Windows machines I would recommend you to switch to Veeam VSS rather than use VMware Tools Quiescence which should be used for Linux guests.

As to your block size question...you should have the same block size for LUN where VM's configuration files are located to be able to create snapshot using both ways, manually with vSphere Client and automatically with Veeam. To have your backup job up and running, you either need to re-format the LUN with 1 MB block size with a higher value or move this particular VM to the 2 MB LUN and re-run the job.

Hope it helps!