Skip to main content

ABR10 - Acronis takes snapshot to begin backup, entire VMFS fills up

Thread needs solution

After Acronis took the snapshot on a server I was backing up, the new drives it created filled the entire VMFS store up and now I can't boot the server anymore. I can't find a way to merge the snapshot files back down to a single drive. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

0 Users found this helpful

Hello Jeremy,

Thank you for using [[http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/ | Acronis Corporate Products]]

ESX Appliance is able to use hotplug feature of VMWare. In this case we add disks of backed up virtual machine directly to appliance and this significantly speed up backup process. ESXAppliance itself doesn’t create additional disks.

Could you please provide us with the details? Could you please illustrate the issue with the screen shots?

If you are not familiar with making screen shots, please read the below step-by-step instructions.

- Get to the window which you want to make a screen shot of;
- Hit the (Alt+)PrintScreen button on your keyboard;
- Run Paint usually available in Start\Programs\Accessories or another graphics application;
- Choose Paste command in Edit menu;
- Save the result picture in JPEG format being preferable.

Thank you.

Oleg,

We are having the same problem here.

The machine we have with the issue has a 20GB vmdk file and then there are many other files created with no way to consolidate the files.

I have attached a screenshot of the Datastore Browser and the files that are located in it.

Can you please let us know what the solution is for this issue.

Thanks

Damien Clark

Attachment Size
7097-85711.JPG 157.04 KB

Hello Damien,

Thank you for the provided information.

I have received an answer from the appropriate department. The encountered issue should be resolved in Update 1. We expect the release of Update 1 very soon, approximately in October.

Thank you.

Oleg,

Thanks for the info.

Has the date for the new release of Update 1 been announced yet?

Thanks

Damien Clark

Hello Damien,

Thank you for taking time to contact us.

You see, the exact date of the Update 1 release is unknown. Our developers are working to create a stable build of the program, it has the highest priority for now. We were planning to release Update 1 in October, but we have encountered additional issues that we have to solve before the release. Currently the date is moved to November. 

Please note that the date is very approximate, but we all press towards to keep the time frame. 

Thank you.

I think my issue relates. Oleg or anyone, can you advise?
Issues:
1) I backed up 2 virtual servers on a test policy. During the first server I got an 'internal error', but it says it finished both backups successfully. Error log attached. I had to reboot the ESX agent for the 'internal error' to stop.
2) When the above backup finishes, it says it removes the snapshot, but if I go into snapshot manager on the VI client, it shows a "Consolidate Helper -0" snapshot. I have to shutdown that server, delete that snapshot, and restart the server.
I have attached a log file(xml converted to txt) and jpg. Please tell me if all these things are going to be fixed in the next update. I'm using B&R 10 Advanced Server Virtual 10.0.11133.
Damien, Jeremy - is this kind of what is happening to you?

Attachment Size
9751-86011.txt 43.71 KB
9751-86014.jpg 110.88 KB

We got a work around, but I'm really hoping they come out with update 1 soon to fix this.

If you look at your acronis virtual appliance, in the settings window it should only have 4 drives. But the machine you have with the consolidate helper snapshots most likely has 1 or more of its drives now mapped to the Acronis virtual appliance. If you shut down the acronis appliance and remove those drives, you can then successfully remove the consolidate helper snapshots from that vm.

Jeremy Wheeler

I also noticed that after a backup is created on, let's say ServerA, that the associated vmdk file changes. If the file was called ServerA.vmdk, after the backup, it is attached to a new file called ServerA-00001.vmdk, next time ServerA-00002.vmdk, and so on. Maybe this is part of the bug, I don't know, but right now the product is unuable to me - I don't trust it. I'm hoping that Acronis comes out with a new update to 11133 soon. I've tried support, but the support ****. Sorry Acronis, but it's horrible. As of now I have an expensive product I can't use because it's doing things to my virtual servers I don't like. Oleg, any chance you can give an update as to when a new release is coming out?

I agree, the support is quite bad. This is not an inexpensive product, and at the moment it is unusable for me. I've asked my account rep, an engineer, and this forum multiple times what the release date is for the fix for this problem, and the only answer I ever get is "soon". Come on guys, give us an exact date that this fix is coming out.