Throttling the I/O of Windows Server Backup

I noticed by default that Windows Backup / Windows Server Backup does not have any built-in way to throttle disk IO during backups. When backups overun this can cause a pretty severe impact on services / users relying on the machine.

Although fortunatly windows provides a native API to control I/O on processes - now lucky for us Process Hacker can do this for us...

Firstly select the process and right-hand click selecting I/O Priority and choosing a specific level e.g. 'Low' - there is also a 'save for myprocess.exe' button in the save dialog window allowing you to make the changes permenemet for future instances of the process:

The specific process you should throttle is called wbengine.exe. I usually set the I/O prioirty to 'Low' which seems to do the job for me at least - but you might need to experiment a little first :)

You can read further about the different levels here.