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Numerous files with cifsxxxx and 0 bytes on CIFS file system on NAS share

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Hi Forum,

does anyone know about thousands of zero bytes files in the vmProtect path on an NAS storage with a SMB share. Where do they come from and can they be deleted?

Thanks in Advance

Ralph

0 Users found this helpful

Hello Ralph,

Thank you for bringing this question up.

These are the lock files that remain after the location scan, and backup to the archives. They doesn't affect the functionality, and can be deleted (in case there's no backup running to that location during its deletion.

It's a known behavior, it's recognized as normal, and can be safely ignored.

Should you need anything else or have any further questions - feel free to contact us at your earliest convenience, we will be happy to help you!

Thank you.

Hi Yana,

thank you for your response. I'll delete these files from time to time. Wouldn't it be preferable to have them erased by the backup software? Even they have 0 bytes in size, they all occupy a block on the file system.

Kind Regards
Ralph

Hi Ralph,

Thank you for sharing your concern with me.

I agree with you on this one, but currently Development decided to leave the situation as it is, as the behavior is recognized as normal. Still probably it will be changed in the future releases.

Let me know if you have any additional concerns, I will be glad to address them.

Thank you.

I am now using the ne vmProtect 8 and this issue still exists. When you are running hourly backup of 10 VM. The files very quickly pile up. sadly, a very keen employee deleted a tib whilst cleaning up this mess left over.

Acronis, please make your software work properly.

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Posts: 22
Comments: 3800

Hi!

The presence of the .lck and other 0-size files in the backup location is normal and does not affect the functionality of vmProtect or the share state. The actual backup data is stored inside the .tib files (which can be easily distinguished by non-zero size) and it's not in fact recommended to do any manual modifications of the files inside the backup location since it may cause archive corruption. And of course there is absolutely no need to delete the 0-sized files from the location - these files are required to resolve possible I/O conflicts when there are several tasks (backup and recovery) operating with the same location, but indeed they are not removed from the location entirely. Another thing to note is that this issue happens only with specific NAS devices (we've seen it only with NetGear NAS in our QA lab) or other Linux-based shares. This problem does not happen with Windows-based shares.

Thank you.
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Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis vmProtect Program Manager