Hi,I have recently upgraded a Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) computer to Windows 8 Pro (64-bit) and quickly realised there was a problem with Windows 8 image backups failing with error; "The version does not support this version of the file format". Having done some research on forums etc I realise this is relates to an incompatibility with Windows 8 and some implementations of SAMBA and I noticed yesterday that a new firmware 4.1.12 has been released for my NV+ which claims to address the issue.I have upgraded my NV+ from 4.1.10 to 4.1.12 and retried my Windows 8 image backup, however the same error occurs. Does anyone know if there is additional configuration required within 4.1.12 to resolve this issue, or whether 4.1.12 doesn't resolve the issue in all situations?Incidentally, my NV+ remote update did not automatically detect the newer version and following a manual update having downloaded the new firmware from the Netgear website it still states; The system is already running the latest firmware (4.1.10), although the home screen reports 4.1.12. Is this correct, or has there been a problem with the upgrade (my NV+ seems to work fine in all other regards)?Thanks,Simon

I think the Release Notes were referring to Frontview backup jobs though there were other changes to samba too.Can you clear your web browser cache (e.g. Temporary Internet Files in Internet Explorer), close your web browser then reopen Frontview. When you check for updates does it still indicate that you are running 4.1.10?

Hi mdgm,I've cleared my browser cache as you suggested and the FrontView homepage still reports "Firmware: RAIDiator 4.1.12 [1.00a043]" but the update screen shows:The system is already running the latest firmware. Click Perform System Update if you wish to proceed with the update anyway.Name: RAIDiator Version: 4.1.10 Date: Fri Aug 24 23:55:19 2012 Size: 62948864I reviewed the release notes for 4.1.12 before updating and it states:9.Updated SMB client to make backup jobs from Windows 8 clients work properlyI had assumed that this would fix the problem "out of the box", but appreciate issues like this are complex and further config may be required.

Ah. That just means 4.1.10 is the version on the update server.What version of samba is needed for use with Windows 8 Image Backup?4.1.12 includes samba 3.5.21

I'm not sure to be honest. The guidance for resolving the issue I've found on forums has been to add "strict allocate = yes" to the smb.conf file, although people seem to have found mixed results. I thought I'd try 4.1.12 before making SAMBA config changes as I have a number of Windows 7 computers backing up to the same share and I don't want to break those.The information I've seen to date is that the issue relates to changes in the implementation of SMB in Windows 8, but nothing definitive about a particular version of SAMBA which addresses the issue.

You'll probably need to try making the samba config change manually.

Windows 8 Image Backup & NV+ Firmware 4.1.12

16 Replies

mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Jul 08, 2013
I think the Release Notes were referring to Frontview backup jobs though there were other changes to samba too.

Can you clear your web browser cache (e.g. Temporary Internet Files in Internet Explorer), close your web browser then reopen Frontview. When you check for updates does it still indicate that you are running 4.1.10?
SimonM1
Aspirant
Jul 08, 2013
Hi mdgm,

I've cleared my browser cache as you suggested and the FrontView homepage still reports "Firmware: RAIDiator 4.1.12 [1.00a043]" but the update screen shows:

The system is already running the latest firmware. Click Perform System Update if you wish to proceed with the update anyway.

Name: RAIDiator
Version: 4.1.10
Date: Fri Aug 24 23:55:19 2012
Size: 62948864

I reviewed the release notes for 4.1.12 before updating and it states:

9.Updated SMB client to make backup jobs from Windows 8 clients work properly

I had assumed that this would fix the problem "out of the box", but appreciate issues like this are complex and further config may be required.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Jul 08, 2013
Ah. That just means 4.1.10 is the version on the update server.

What version of samba is needed for use with Windows 8 Image Backup?

4.1.12 includes samba 3.5.21
SimonM1
Aspirant
Jul 08, 2013
I'm not sure to be honest. The guidance for resolving the issue I've found on forums has been to add "strict allocate = yes" to the smb.conf file, although people seem to have found mixed results. I thought I'd try 4.1.12 before making SAMBA config changes as I have a number of Windows 7 computers backing up to the same share and I don't want to break those.

The information I've seen to date is that the issue relates to changes in the implementation of SMB in Windows 8, but nothing definitive about a particular version of SAMBA which addresses the issue.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Jul 08, 2013
You'll probably need to try making the samba config change manually.
SimonM1
Aspirant
Jul 08, 2013
I'm of two minds about that... Samba.org has this to say on Strict Allocate:

strict allocate (S)

This is a boolean that controls the handling of disk space allocation in the server. When this is set to yes the server will change from UNIX behaviour of not committing real disk storage blocks when a file is extended to the Windows behaviour of actually forcing the disk system to allocate real storage blocks when a file is created or extended to be a given size. In UNIX terminology this means that Samba will stop creating sparse files.

This option is really designed for file systems that support fast allocation of large numbers of blocks such as extent-based file systems. On file systems that don't support extents (most notably ext3) this can make Samba slower. When you work with large files over >100MB on file systems without extents you may even run into problems with clients running into timeouts.

When you have an extent based filesystem it's likely that we can make use of unwritten extents which allows Samba to allocate even large amounts of space very fast and you will not see any timeout problems caused by strict allocate. With strict allocate in use you will also get much better out of quota messages in case you use quotas. Another advantage of activating this setting is that it will help to reduce file fragmentation.

To give you an idea on which filesystems this setting might currently be a good option for you: XFS, ext4, btrfs, ocfs2 on Linux and JFS2 on AIX support unwritten extents. On Filesystems that do not support it, preallocation is probably an expensive operation where you will see reduced performance and risk to let clients run into timeouts when creating large files. Examples are ext3, ZFS, HFS+ and most others, so be aware if you activate this setting on those filesystems.

Default: strict allocate = no

I believe my NV+ runs EXT3 so enabling this is likely to cause other issues... Does anyone have any experience of using this on similar hardware?
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Jul 08, 2013
Ah. Yes the NV+ uses EXT3.

The models running 4.2.x use EXT4 and the models running ReadyNAS OS use BTRFS.

Perhaps you should consider getting a new NAS to backup your Windows 8 images to.
SimonM1
Aspirant
Jul 08, 2013
I have thought about that, but it seems overkill for a single computer... Especially as my NV+ does everything I need for now, although the new OS6 devices appeal!

I would be really interested to understand what the NetGear support team's view on the issue is though. "Updated SMB client to make backup jobs from Windows 8 clients work properly" seems like a sweeping statement if it only applies to Windows 8 file backups and not image backups (which is where I believe the majority of the issues people will encounter lie). That said, I have noticed one minor change in behaviour since installing 4.1.12 which is on 4.1.10 I would only get the "The version does not support this version of the file format" when I had deleted the .vhdx file and a new one was being created as part of the backup. When a file already existed, the job would still fail but with the following error message; "Windows Backup encountered an error when accessing the remote shared folder". Now I get the file format error every time, regardless of whether a file already exists or not.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Jul 08, 2013
That comment in the Release Notes suggests an update to smbclient which is used by Frontview (web-admin interface of the NAS) backup jobs which are configured under Backup in Frontview. When running a Frontview backup job the NAS is the client and your PC is the server, whereas when you run a backup job on your PC (e.g. for when doing a Windows 8 Image Backup) the NAS is the server and the PC is the client. I think that line in the Release Notes could have been written in a way that was clearer.

In old firmware the version of smbclient was older than the version of smbd (samba server daemon). I haven't installed 4.1.12 yet but the Release Notes suggest that this possibly is no longer the case.

Though as I mentioned above the version of smbd used in 4.1.12 is still newer than the one in 4.1.10.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Jul 08, 2013
Well, just logged into one of my NV+ remotely and updated the firmware and I'm right.

In 4.1.10 there is smbclient 3.0.37. There is also smbd 3.5.16
In 4.1.12 there is smbclient 3.5.21. There is also smbd 3.5.21