Release of Exchange 2007 SP2 brought much awaited feature – VSS Backups!

This was exciting. You were now able to take Exchange Server Backups on Windows Server 2008 without third-party backup software.

That was until after you ran your first backup, or a few more if you weren’t watching! That is when you noticed that the backups have not failed but the transactions logs did not truncate either!

What could go wrong with Exchange? Why is it not truncating logs? The backups have not failed.

Trust me, there is nothing wrong with Exchange. Exchange is fine!

The problem is with the way backup is run. When you run the backup and select “Everything”, The VSS default is “Copy” backup. When you run “Copy” backup, it does not change archive bit. In this case, it does not truncate transaction logs.

You need to make sure when you run the backup to create a custom backup and make sure it is “Full” backup and not a “Copy” backup. When you run a “Full” backup, Exchange will truncate transaction log files as expected after backup successfully completes.