VMware Backup Failed with “create backup directory error” – How to Fix?

Damian Montrose

Problem Description:
A VMware virtual machine backup job fails during execution.
The backup task cannot complete and reports an error indicating that the backup directory cannot be created. It is unclear whether this is caused by the backup software itself or by a storage configuration issue.

Error Log:

Backing up VM 'PRDCS_NODO5' error,
[#3047] create backup directory error

Unable to backup the VM 'PRDCS_NODO5',
error code: "[#3047] create backup directory error"

Has anyone encountered this issue before? What is the root cause and how can it be resolved?

Cedric Winthrop

Damian Montrose
This issue is caused by missing write permissions on the NFS storage.
Because the NFS datastore is configured as read-only, the backup system cannot create the required backup directory, resulting in the create backup directory error.

Solution:

Log in to the backup system management console
Navigate to the configured backup storage path (NFS mount)
Test whether a new folder can be created in that directory
If folder creation fails, the storage permissions are insufficient
On the NFS server, update the export permissions
Set the access mode to read & write
Save the configuration and rerun the backup job

Result:
After enabling read/write permissions on the NFS storage, the backup directory can be created successfully and the VMware backup job completes normally.

Dan Zeng

Hi Damian, this error is often related to storage access rather than the backup application itself.
You may want to check whether the backup repository (especially NFS) has proper write permissions and can create directories.