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NetBackup™ Snapshot Manager for Cloud Install and Upgrade Guide

Last Published: 2025-03-18

Product(s): NetBackup & Alta Data Protection (11.0)

Configuring VSS to store shadow copies on the originating drive

If you want to take disk-level, application-consistent snapshots of a Windows file system or Microsoft SQL application, you must configure Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). VSS lets you take volume snapshots while applications continue to write to the volume.

When you configure VSS, note the following;

NetBackup Snapshot Manager currently has a limitation that you must manually configure the shadow copy creation location to the same drive or volume as the originating drive. This approach ensures that an application-consistent snapshot is created.
If shadow storage already exists on an alternate drive or a dedicated drive, you must disable that storage and replace it with the configuration in the following procedure.
NetBackup Snapshot Manager does not support discovery, snapshot, and restore operations for SQL databases that contain leading or trailing spaces or non-printable characters. This is because the VSS writer goes into an error state for such databases.
For more information, see Microsoft Documentation.

To configure VSS to store shadow copies on the originating drive

On the Windows host, open the command prompt. If User Account Control (UAC) setting is enabled on the server, launch the command prompt in the Run as administrator mode.
For each drive letter on which you want to take disk-level, application-consistent snapshots using NetBackup Snapshot Manager, enter a command similar to the following:
```
vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=<drive being backed up> ^
/on=<drive to store the shadow copy> ^
/maxsize=<percentage of disk space allowed to be used>
```
Here, maxsize represents the maximum free space usage allowed on the shadow storage drive. The caret (^) character in the command represents the Windows command line continuation character.
For example, if the VSS shadow copies of the D: drive are to be stored on the D: drive and allowed to use up to 80% of the free disk space on D:, the command syntax is as follows:
```
vssadmin add shadowstorage /for=d: /on=d: /maxsize=80%
```
The command prompt displays a message similar to the following:
```
Successfully added the shadow copy storage association
```
Verify your changes using the following command:
```
vssadmin list shadowstorage
```