shadow copy - only 1 copy appearing

Hi,

I have seen this problem a couple of times on windows 2003 servers even
though this is not a common issue (different clients). When I look at shadow
copies of a drive, I see only 1 copy. It looks like everytime it does a copy,
it deletes the old ones. I've checked the schedule, the quota,
deactivate/reactivate with default options, all the options, everything is
fine and even redoing the shadow copy configuration did nothing. If I do a
shadow copy manually, I now see 2 shadow copies. The one made by the schedule
and mine (I've done a couple manually and can see all of them). But at the
next schedule, I will see only 1 copy which is the last one made
automatically. The other automatic copy and the manual ones dissapearing.

I've also checked with the command vssadmin that everything is fine and no
errors in event viewer. On the server I am having the issue ritght now, I see
multiple copies for the C: drive but only one for the D: drive (so basically
don't have the problem for the C: drive). I have configured and used Shadow
copy a lot over the years and always use default values which is fine with me.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Lanwench
Sat May 10 07:29:13 PDT 2008

Sleb <Sleb@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have seen this problem a couple of times on windows 2003 servers
> even though this is not a common issue (different clients). When I
> look at shadow copies of a drive, I see only 1 copy. It looks like
> everytime it does a copy, it deletes the old ones. I've checked the
> schedule, the quota, deactivate/reactivate with default options, all
> the options, everything is fine and even redoing the shadow copy
> configuration did nothing. If I do a shadow copy manually, I now see
> 2 shadow copies. The one made by the schedule and mine (I've done a
> couple manually and can see all of them). But at the next schedule, I
> will see only 1 copy which is the last one made automatically. The
> other automatic copy and the manual ones dissapearing.
>
> I've also checked with the command vssadmin that everything is fine
> and no errors in event viewer. On the server I am having the issue
> ritght now, I see multiple copies for the C: drive but only one for
> the D: drive (so basically don't have the problem for the C: drive).
> I have configured and used Shadow copy a lot over the years and
> always use default values which is fine with me.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks

AFAIK, the number of copies retained, depend on the available disk
space....are you running low?

Edwin
Sun May 11 03:06:59 PDT 2008


>
> AFAIK, the number of copies retained, depend on the available disk
> space....are you running low?
>

Yes, well that is: not only

It relies on (if set in registry)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VSS\Settings\MaxShadowC
opies

as well as the maxsize which you can specify like this:

vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=<vol_letter:>: /on=<vol_letter:>
/maxsize=XXGB