Orphaned Server Backup Files

Ken Krugh 116 Reputation points
2023-08-23T13:00:25.9766667+00:00

We have a server with Windows Server 2012 R2 that's a VM host that uses Windows Server Backup to backup it's virtual machines. Using the free version of TreeSize I can see that the System Volume Information folder contains 1.5 TB of files.

Capture

Shadow copy is NOT enabled on this sever but I'm told these are likely "orphaned" snapshots from Windows Sever backup, but I've been unable to find a way to delete them.

I've tried various vssadmin commands including resizing and delete, but it seems like vssadmin only looks at things associated with Shadow Copy being enabled.

Any hints for cleaning out that folder would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
Ken

Windows Server
Windows Server
A family of Microsoft server operating systems that support enterprise-level management, data storage, applications, and communications.
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Windows Server Backup
Windows Server Backup
Windows Server: A family of Microsoft server operating systems that support enterprise-level management, data storage, applications, and communications.Backup: A duplicate copy of a program, a disk, or data, made either for archiving purposes or for safeguarding valuable files from loss should the active copy be damaged or destroyed.
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  1. Ken Krugh 116 Reputation points
    2023-08-25T14:26:07.7133333+00:00

    For anyone facing this same thing: We finally happened upon this page. I'm not sure it actually explains that even though Shadow Copy is DISABLED the settings in the below dialog STILL AFFECT what Windows Server Backup does, which uses shadow copy to create its backups.

    Right click the drive, select "Configure Shadow Copies...," select your drive from the list and hit the "Settings..." button to get this:

    User's image

    This shows the errant settings for drive M:, which is a fairly new drive. We don't know what or why something decided that drive M:'s shadow copies should be stored on drive D:. Maybe because Windows Server Backup was already using and backing up drive D: or it saw that there was far more space on drive D:.

    When we changed the settings as described below for drive D: nothing happened, that's because drive D:'s shadow copies weren't the problem. On a whim we checked drive M:'s settings finding it was storing on D:!!

    To fix the problem set the value highlighted above to the minimum of 320 MB, come out of all dialogs and keep checking your drive space. Once it goes down you can reset the limit to something more reasonable.

    It appears that once something goes awry with Windows Server Backup it starts "orphaning" shadow copy files in the System Volume Information folder. We had files in there for everyday going back 7 months, even though the backup appeared to be running correctly. I have not taken the time to slog through Event Viewer logs to see what might have happened on that day. The first backup that ran after making this fix has NOT started piling files in the System Volume Information folder again, so that's good enough for now.

    If anyone has any insight as to what sends Windows Server Backup into save-stuff mode I'd be very interested.

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