Compression Issue
This issue didn't seem to be present before on this same system and I have another system running that does not experience the issue.
What happens is when running a backup with high or max compression the acronis process runs up to 100% cpu utilization. Once that happens the system is locked up and can not be used until a hard restart. The system is more or should be more than capable of running without issues. If I run the same backup with normal or lower compression no issue.
I was running this backup set a few weeks ago with max compression without issue. I even created a new backup job with the same results though. I have gone back to the earlier 2017 build same issue. Even went back to 2016 same issue. This is a clean install on this system. I just can not seem to see what I might be missing that made it work before. Other than this issue the system experiences no issues.
I do not know what the size difference in the backup is with normal compression to max. If it was really minimal then I am not so concerned but if it is significant then I prefer fixing this issue.
Any help or suggestions are much appreciated. Thank you for any help.
Thank you for the suggestions. The clean installs I was doing were of windows I wanted to be sure nothing was left over to mess it up.
Tried your suggested settings I did get farther with low/normal priority and normal compression but still locks up at about 150GB. I will continue to play with the compression and see if I can get it to back up at all with any compression.
I will also try the bootable media maybe I can perform the first full backup there and since the rest will be incrementals it won't hopefully lock up.
Well upon further research into the issue I know that the bootable media does not have the issue even on max compression. I was able to complete a full backup without any compression at all.
I did a comparison and there is about a 200GB difference between no compression which is the one I was actually able to run and max compression. Now at the end of the day this will be an incremental so there are not going to be that many changes to the initial full backup.
Now when I said clean install before only things installed were the drivers and the handful of programs I will be using on this server. Turns out there might be somthing in that limited amout of drivers/programs that is causing the issue.
When I did an absolute clean install with the 1607 build of Windows 10 x64 no updates and the only driver I installed was for the raid card and the only program I installed was acronis I was able to run the backup at max compression and normal priority no issue.
I will have to try next just doing the regular drivers I am using and a fullly up to date Windows 10. Install acronis and try a backup then. If it's still working then I will move on to the programs and see where that takes me. None of these are new programs I am using but it maybe an update to one of them or the drivers that is causing the issue.
The 100% CPU utilization has been posted around the net on various forums with a multitude of suggested fixes. The two that are most plausable are memory leaks pressumably caused by outdated applications or apps borken by Windows updates and Windows update itself.
It seems that with Windows update turning off the "Update from more than one place" option in the "Choose how updates are delivered" setting fixes the issue.
Well I did alot more investigating last night and was able to find the cause of the problem.
I first did a clean install on a new drive. I made an image of that installation to quicken up the testing process too. Installed acronis and ran the same backup I have been trying to run with the same settings. No issue.
Restored image and then installed all the drivers I have been using since this problem started. Created new OS image with the drivers installed this time. I then installed acronis and ran the backup. No issue.
Restored the image and ran windows update and installed all the updates. Installed acronis and yup issue is there. So now I knew it had to do with windows update.
Restored the image and then used the windows update mini tool to pick apart the normally automatically installed updates to see what might be causing the issue. What I found was windows 10 was installing what it thought was the correct drivers for Intel Manangment Interface and Intel Watchdog drivers. I didn't know that so I figured I would start with those. Installed them and then installed acronis. Yup issue was there.
Restored the image and then installed all non driver windows updates and no issues. Made a new image and then installed the the driver updates. I even seperated them out and the Intel Management Inferface would cause BSOD when running the backup and the Intel Watchdog driver would just cause an outright lockup with no bsod.
So it looks like it was a driver update but not any that I was using but from windows update. I have since hidden those updates and everything is going smoothly for once on this new build.
I appreciate everyone's help. Thank you again.
Thanks for the update and information. If you don't mind, could you submit feedback though the app with a system report and the link to this thread. Perhaps, there's something that Acronis may be able to do with the driver compatibility if they're able to see the particular issue and investigate it more too.
Great bit of investigative work there Ethan! Thanks for posting your findings. I also encourage submitting feedback, as that can help with reaching resolution to the issue.