Backup failing on Fresh New system under first full backup.....

Richard, 5TB is a rather large backup. Large backups can take a long time, an backups to external devices can take even longer. I gather that Partition D is on a separate drive; where there are multiple drives I prefer to have a separate backup task for each as it allows fine tuning of the backup process.

You definitely need to do a disks and partitions of the drive containing your system partition (C), however for partition F you could do a series of files and folders backups with the scheduling (how often) reflecting the frequency with which the content changes and how critical it is.

Backing up 5TB to a 10TB drive will require planning, even with max level of compression it would be difficult to get more than one backup chain. The cleanup rules used by Acronis do not remove an old backup chain until the first full backup of the next chain has been competed. So 2 x 5TB plus the incremental backups of the chain will be tight, even with max compression.

Problems with Western Digital My Book drives have been reported by other users. I have never used one; but I have backed up to WE Elements and Seagate Expansion drives without issues. I would suggest checking the USB power settings for the WD drive as it may be going into sleep mode. Speed and reliability fo the backup process can depend on the USB port to which to dive is attached; using USB port on the rear of the PC (the backpane) is most reliable; those on the front/top of the cases attach to the main board by a header and they can be unreliable. Also, I doubt this is happening here, but have you accidentally plugged it into a USB 2 port rather than a USB 3 port? No harm in checking. You could also try a different USB 3 port - many PCs have multiple USB controllers, some on the CPU, some in the chipset, and possibly some in a 3rd part controller. So there can be differences in performance; this can be due to the version of USB 3 being used - there appears to be at least 4 versions, possibly more.

If you need more advice please post back.

Ian

Richard, I agree with Ian that it is best to make separate backups of individual drives when the sizes are very large.  I do this even for separate partitions when I have these in use for specific types of data such as my documents, photos etc.

To identify why a backup task is giving an error would need the log files to be reviewed as these will contain more information on the issue encountered.

There are two specific log file types used in ATI 2020 for Disk backups, both found from a root of C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Logs

TI_Demon logs are used for the email notification messages from a task but contain just an overview of the activity.

backup_worker logs contain a lot more diagnostic detail on backup activities.
Note: these are not used for Files & Folders tasks which just use the ti_demon logs only.

If you want help in reviewing the logs, then please zip them to preserve their original file name(s) before posting the zip file to the forum for this topic.

Richard,

I agree with Ian and Steve in backing up disks individually and I will go farther and say. especially to the latest above 6TB drives on the market.  A caveat of these large drives in two fold. 

First, manufacturers have taken to releasing the large drives in a compatible format for Both Windows and Mac.  That format is exFat.  Windows native format is NTFS and is a bit more robust than the exFat format.  A common misstep with these larger drives in exFat format is that when writing large amounts of data to them, failures often occur do to the filesystem itself.  As the filesystem grows at a fast rate due to free space being supposedly exhausted faster than usual.  You will find a reference to that  Here

The reference spoken of above is found in the H2testW segment of the article.  Speaking of H2testW you might wish to grab this free tool and run it against your WD drive.

Another aspect of this is that WD quality assurance is not on par with what they were a few years ago.  I believe that is true for all the makers.  Annual failure rates, if you're interested in that type of thing hint at HGST and WD being the least reliable of the 6TB and over size drives. One example I saw recently was a WD 6TB sample wherein a total of 383 of these drives experienced a 70 drive failure rate which is a 4.13% ratio, almost 4 times the average among other makers.

Having said that, I use WD drives with great success albeit none in this large capacity category.  I would suggest that you reformat this drive to the NTFS format and then run your backup again.  I bet your failure will disappear doing that.  I believe this simply because it is the default Windows filesystem of choice and therefore will be less prone to errors.

Hello and thanks to all for the responses and suggestions.

Ian; thanks for your reply. I’m OK with the 5TB backups taking a bit longer than preferred. I have successfully been using these external Western Digital Backup type USB hard drives for some time now. My previous Western Digital My Book external USB hard drives were only 8TB and they seem to work and backup the same internal drives I’m using now. Both my C and F drive together.

Although it always seemed like I was cutting it very close. So I finally decided to upgrade both my external usb backup drives to the now 10TB. If I was able to perform this same backup of both drives under the 8TB, you would naturally assume this should work just as well under the 10 TB.

The only other difference is that I was using ATI 2019 with my 8TB drives. And now I’m using ATI 2020 on a new system setup with these new external 10 TB hard drives.

These are USB 3.0 drives which are connected to the USB 3.1 gen 2 (red) port on the rear of my Asus Rog Maximax XI Hero Z390 motherboard (as my other 3.1 gen 1 (blue) ports are used up. Although I did try plugging the drive into a USB 3.1 gen 1 port on my third attempt here and it just now also failed again.  ☹

So I don't believe it's a port issue. I also swapped out the USB cables on my third attempt, again made no difference.

My C drive backup is only 256 GB. It’s rather small compared to the F drive which is 4.8 TB. And given the small size of the backup for the C drive, I always figured we’ll just back them both up together. Two birds with one stone.

Was doing this for years under both ATI 2018 and ATI 2019.

In any event, now under ATI 2020 I’m encountering this error that I never seen before. I’m going to take your advice and run separate backups for my “C:” drive and then another separate backup for the “F:” drive.

By the way, I’m including an image showing what my backup scheme was set to under the 2020 version. Given the external drives that I’m working with, would you suggest change anything here?

Perhaps the part that mentions “store no more than (10) recent version chains”? Change that to 5?

Steve: thanks for providing the whereabout of the log files on my system. I zipped up all the files under backup_worker logs which I’m including along with this message if it can help provide any insight to the reason of the failed backup events.

There is a total of five log files dating from when I first started to run these backups on July, 19th. With the most recent failed backup occurring just a short while ago here today (July 21st)

Enchantech; thanks so much for that info. The 10 TB western digital hard drives were initially set to exFat by the factory. Prior to any of the backups I did format the WD external USB drives to NTFS. After reading through your message I’m glad I did..  😊

So I should be good on that aspect. It’s so strange why my Acronis backup keeps failing towards the end with this error message. At least it appears to be close to the end as it sits there noting “less than 1-minute remaining” for a few hours only just to error out.

I never noticed that under the older version of Acronis, where it sits there for hours noting  “less than 1-minute remaining”. Sure would be nice if the backup process can be a bit more precise on the actual time remaining and fully complete..  :\

Richard, ref your backup configuration option to Store no more than 10 recent version chains, that will never work for you given the size of your data and destination drive.

If we assume a size of 5TB for the backup of just C: and F: drives, if you then add 5 incremental backups to that 5TB, you are already in a position where your 10TB drive can only store a single version chain and unless 5TB is an over estimation, does not have enough free space to create a new Full backup image to allow automatic cleanup to remove the older version chain.

If we assume a size of 4TB for the C and F backup including incrementals, then you could use the option to 'Store no more than 1 recent version chains', which would then allow for a new 4TB full backup file to be created before deleting the old chain (full + 5 x incr) via automatic cleanup.

The backup_worker log files are showing write errors / Input/Output errors when writing to the target .tibx file on your destination drive, which again suggests (to me) that perhaps you are simply running out of space on that drive!

21/07/2020 05:47:17:395 PM
type=commonerror;
value=A backup error.
Input/output error
The requested operation could not be completed due to a file system limitation
file_write path L:\My Drive C and F Backup.tibx

Above is the cleaned up error message shown in the log.

Looking at Steve's findings I would agree, the disk is running out of free space.  I think you would do well to reassess your backup plan and change that to accommodate the amount of data you have.  Maybe consider partitioning your F drive to break up the data then backup at the partition level with one partition having a target destination of the 10TB drive and the other destined to the 8TB drive.  With such an arrangement you could then have an incremental method backup with say 2 or 4 version chains.  Something to consider.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks like Richard is backing up 4.2 TB on a 10 TB disk that I believe is empty before running the initial backup. So why should it be running out of space?

Steve, the error you highlighted in yellow above has a "failed to close archive" message. That sounds like it got to the end of the actual backup. I can't explain it; just pointing it out.

What would the "file system limitation" be?

Bruno, I have not seen any confirmation that the target drive is empty when this backup was being run.

I suspect that the 'failed to close archive' is being caused by a lack of available free space on the drive to allow the file to be finalised and closed out.

Steve, the OP says "There is nothing wrong with the Western Digital Drive. Everything is brand new and working and is recognized in windows just fine." as well as "And now I’m using ATI 2020 on a new system setup with these new external 10 TB hard drives." and he also mentions the problem on "initial full backup". Yes, I am assuming an empty drive, but I think it is a reasonable inference.

Richard, perhaps you can verify this. And also, look at the drive partitioning to verify that the partition is appropriately configured. How does it look under Disk Management?

Hello and thanks for all the help with this. Sorry I took so long to respond back. Life has a funny way of getting in the way...   :)

Steve: Thanks for deciphering those log files. I must say, it is strange that under ATI 2020 I receive an error indicating that I'm running out of space backing up on the 10TB external drive. I ran these same backups with the same settings successfully when under ATI 2019 and was also on a smaller external backup drive at 8TB.

Bruno, thanks for taking notice to my situation. You got it correct. This is a brand new clean formatted 10GB external drive. Nothing on them. It's formatted as a single partition using NTFS.

You would expect ATI 2020 to be able to backup the initial Full 5tb of data onto this 10TB drive without any trouble. There were no incremental backups on this new drive yet. I was just starting the first full backup which was at about 5tb (Both C and F Drives combined) and it kept failing with the error as was provided in my earlier message.

Perhaps ATI 2020 was being proactive and was calculating future incremental backups along with the initial full (full + 5 x incr) prior to even making them and decided it wouldn’t be able to fit?

One thing for certain was that this all use to work just fine under ATI 2019.

In any event, I have since separated the two drives (as was also suggested here) and ran a backup of only the F drive and it now seems to be working. It completed the backup and verification. Strange that I was experiencing an error when I was performing this backup along with the C drive. Especially considering the C drive was only backing up an additional 254 GB....

Richard, are you using the Notifications option to 'Show notification message on insufficient free disk space' along with setting a value to 'Notify me when free disk space is less than ?? MB/GB'

I ask because this can give some strange results if the value is set incorrectly?

Hi Steve, thanks for your reply. Yes I am currently using the "'Show notification message on insufficient free disk space'. I have this values set to 500 GB. Which I felt should be a safe value as the drive is large enough at 10TB. Is this OK?

The backups do seem to be working now and going through the full verification without error (since I separated the two drives and ran the backup separately for each drive).  Although the verification is taking way longer than the small incremental backup’s take to complete.

I have a question, (when I view my backup Drive) I'm noticing that I’m only seeing one large file even though I have my backup scheme setup for “incremental”.

Is this normal under ATI 2020? Are the incremental backups being now being combined back into the initial full version?

I know under ATI 2019 I use to see the full backup along with the five incremental backups (as I had setup in the settings).

I’m not seeing this under ATI 2020. Unless I have something, set wrong?

Yes I am currently using the "'Show notification message on insufficient free disk space'. I have this values set to 500 GB. Which I felt should be a safe value as the drive is large enough at 10TB. Is this OK?

Richard, if you still have the original (failing) backup task, then try turning off the above notification & 500GB value and see whether it then runs without failure?  I suspect that it may do so.

I have a question, (when I view my backup Drive) I'm noticing that I’m only seeing one large file even though I have my backup scheme setup for “incremental”.

Is this normal under ATI 2020? Are the incremental backups being now being combined back into the initial full version?

Yes, this is correct with ATI 2020 using .tibx backup files.

See KB 63516: Acronis True Image 2020: Incremental backups do not create separate files when using new backup format - and KB 63498: Acronis True Image 2020: new tibx backup format FAQ

Hi Steve, thanks for your reply. I haven't encountered the failed backup error since I setup the two external hard drives to backup separately as opposed to having them both at the same time. This seems to have taken care of that error I was receiving.

And thanks for confirming the way the backups are now only creating a single file. I was used to seeing all the separate incremental backups on previous versions. Wasn't aware of this new format method.

I think it's actually cleaner looking this way. Not to many individual files on the drive any more.  :)

Again, thanks for all the help.