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Difference between Acronis VSS and System VSS?

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Hi,
I am experiencing the problem:"Failed to start creating the volume snapshot."when making full backup. When I ran the batch file in http://kb.acronis.com/content/36360, I can get a successful backup. however backup failed again after system restarted.

I noticed there might be some problem with my System VSS provider. and I switched to Acronis VSS, it solved the problem.

Here is the question:
what are the differences between system VSS provider and Acronis VSS?
why acronis uses system VSS by default and is it recommended?
Is it stable to use Acronis VSS for the backup?

Thanks

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Posts: 7
Comments: 166

 Hello Lu Yan,

I'll be glad to answer your questions.

what are the differences between system VSS provider and Acronis VSS?

System VSS provider creates a disk snapshot using Windows' Shadow Copies whereas Acronis VSS provider cancels the shadow copy creation and instead creates the snapshot using Acronis SnapAPI drivers. The rest of VSS operations is the same for both (VSS writers are used). In this KB article you can read a detailed description.

why acronis uses system VSS by default and is it recommended?

Since the same installation file is used both for server and workstation operating systems, we set same default settings for all of them. However workstation operating systems do not contain the full VSS functionality, thus the Acronis VSS provider cannot be installed on them. System VSS provider is a setting that by default will work on all systems.

Is it stable to use Acronis VSS for the backup?

Yes, Acronis VSS provider can be safely used for backup of server systems running transactional applications. You just have to make sure that no warnings appear about failing back to non-vss backup.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Thank you