Challenge
The backup job fails with the "File too large" error. The HTML report shows:
Error: File too large POSIX: Failed to write data to the file [/<path>/<job name>/<filename>.vbk]. Failed to download disk. An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host Failed to upload disk. Agent failed to process method {DataTransfer.SyncDisk}.
Cause
The file system or operating system of the Linux repository does not support the size of the backup file.
The maximum file size on a particular repository server depends on a number of factors and can vary with block size, between kernel versions, and between versions of a file system. For example, SLES 11 32-bit has a kernel-based file size limitation of 2 TiB. Older kernels or distributions that lack large file support may have a file size limit as small as 2 GiB.
File system limitations encountered by typical jobs include:
| File System | Maximum File Size |
| FAT32 | 4 GiB |
| Ext3, 1KiB block size | 16 GiB |
| Ext3, 2KiB block size | 256 GiB |
| Ext3, 4KiB+ block size | 2 TiB |
| Ext4, 1KiB block size | 4 TiB |
| Ext4, 2KiB block size | 8 TiB |
| Ext4, 4KiB block size | 16 TiB |
If you have specified an ESX 4.x host as a Linux repository, the following limitations apply:
| File System | Maximum File Size |
| VMFS3, 1KiB block size | 256 GiB |
| VMFS3, 2KiB block size | 512 GiB |
| VMFS3, 4KiB block size | 1 TiB |
| VMFS3, 8KiB block size | 2 TiB minus 512B |
Solution
To resolve this issue, you can do any of the following:
- Copy any files currently on the repository to another storage device, then reformat the disk with a file system that supports larger files, such as XFS.
- Replace the operating system of the 32-bit Linux repository server with 64-bit Linux (if applicable).
- Point the job to a repository that supports larger files.
More Information
Please see the following VMware Knowledge Base article for more information about block size requirements:
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003565
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1003565