Windows Server Essentials 16 external backup drive erased when 55% full

Arthur Begun 1 Reputation point
2020-12-15T06:44:23.433+00:00

I have a 8 Tb external drive for backing up Windows Server Essentials 2016 locally. Server does not have much data on it. When external drive was 80% full, server erased it and restarted backups fresh even though the drive was only growing 1% per day. So I figured next time I would exchange with another external drive when the drive was 70% full. But the drive erased itself and started fresh this time at 55% full. Is there a configuration setting I need to set to tell the server to keep adding back ups to the external drive for a longer period of time? Thanks.

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. Mico Mi 1,921 Reputation points
    2020-12-15T09:33:06.547+00:00

    Hi,
    Please ensure your storage drives contain at least 2.5 times the storage capacity of the data that you want to back up.
    And you should visit the website for your external storage drive manufacturer to ensure that your backup drive is supported on computers running Windows Server Essentials.
    As a workaround, in order not to lose the data that has been created over several days, you can choose to back up server data at multiple times during the day.
    You can read the following doc for further information:
    https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/windows-server-essentials/manage/manage-server-backup-in-windows-server-essentials
    Or you can calculate the backups retention your external drive connected to the server and then setup Veeam Endpoint backup or Vembu Endpoint backup (both are free).
    Also I find a doc which says that the the storage space allocated for snapshots may cause issues in WSB:

    The way Windows Server Backup creates space for new backup is by shrinking the storage space allocated for snapshots (called diff area ). As a result, one or more older snapshots (and hence backup versions corresponding to those snapshots) occupying the diff area that got shrunk get deleted. Before shrinking diff area, WSB determines whether shrinking the diff area can free up the requisite space so the backup can happen. If enough free space can get created, WSB goes ahead with the shrinking and continues with the backup. WSB will not shrink the diff area to less than 1/8 of Target volume size as we do not want to lose all past backups just to accommodate this one. This is why sometimes backup fail with target out of disk space in spite of automatic disk usage management feature in Windows Server Backup.
    This feature will not work if Windows Server Backup has reached the state where it cannot further contract the snapshot allocated space and also preserve some of the existing backups. This happens when space required to complete the backup causes the snapshot storage space to become less than 1/8 of the target size.

    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/storage-at-microsoft/windows-server-backup-automatic-disk-usage-management/ba-p/424142
    Maybe this doc can give you some directions to check the snapshot storage setting.

    Thanks for your time!
    Best Regards,
    Mico Mi

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