Knowledge Base

Acronis True Image errors out with "Unable to create volume snapshot" when backing up volumes of over 4 TB in size in Linux

This article applies to:

• Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Linux
• Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server Linux Agent
• Acronis True Image Echo Server for Linux
• Acronis True Image Echo Enterprise Server Linux Agent

Symptoms

1. Using Acronis True Image you are trying to back up a volume of over 4 TB in size;
2. Acronis True Image fails to back up with an error message similar to the following one:

Unable to create volume snapshot

Cause

In Linux, Acronis True Image cannot allocate more than 128 KB of continuous memory to create a snapshot. Thus, maximum size of a partition of which a snapshot can be created is 4 TB.

Solution

To back up a partition of over 4 TB in size, you will need to bypass the snapshot creation. There are two ways to do this:

• Unmount the volume, and then back it up using Acronis True Image in Linux;
• Back up the volume from Acronis Bootable Rescue Media. See Standalone Version of Acronis Software.

More information

(!) This limitation applies to the size of the volume, not to the size of data on the volume.

(!) Acronis True Image does not have the same limitation in Windows.

For detailed information on what a snapshot is, please see SnapAPI.