Skip to content
English
Contact us
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

Can I throttle the bandwidth with new S3 based mover?

This article will walk you through on how to use powershell to both implement and remove the policy for limiting engine.exe which is the mover for Novabackup.

Category: Troubleshooting

Throttling engine.exe Bandwidth Using Windows QoS Policies (PowerShell)

If NovaBACKUP's backup traffic is consuming more bandwidth than your network can spare during business hours, this article shows you how to limit the network throughput of engine.exe directly at the Windows level using PowerShell.

Note: This article applies to NovaBACKUP PC Agent and NovaBACKUP Server Agent, version 21.x and newer. The built-in Limit network bandwidth option on xSP/Storage Server devices has known reliability issues and does not consistently throttle traffic, including plug-in data and Exchange/SQL transfers. The method below uses a Windows Quality of Service (QoS) policy instead, which throttles the engine.exe process directly and does not depend on that setting.

Prerequisites
  • Administrator access to the machine running the NovaBACKUP backup engine
  • Windows 10/11 or Windows Server (any version with the QoS Packet Scheduler feature, which is included by default)
  • The full install path of engine.exe (default: C:\Program Files\NovaStor\NovaStor NovaBACKUP\engine.exe)
  • PowerShell running as Administrator
What You'll Learn
  • How to create a QoS policy that throttles engine.exe to a specific bandwidth limit
  • How to verify the policy is active
  • How to adjust or remove the throttle later
Step 1: Confirm the engine.exe Path

Before creating the policy, confirm the install path on the machine you're working on. Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

Get-Process engine -FileVersionInfo | Select-Object FileName

If NovaBACKUP was installed to the default location, this returns:

C:\Program Files\NovaStor\NovaStor NovaBACKUP\engine.exe

Note: If the process isn't currently running, use the known install path instead. You can confirm it under Programs and Features or by checking the NovaBACKUP install directory directly.

Step 2: Create the QoS Throttle Policy

Run the following command in an elevated PowerShell session, replacing the throttle rate with the value you want:

New-NetQosPolicy -Name "NovaBACKUP Engine Throttle" `     -AppPathNameMatchCondition "C:\Program Files\NovaStor\NovaStor NovaBACKUP\engine.exe" `     -ThrottleRateActionBitsPerSecond 20000000

Important: ThrottleRateActionBitsPerSecond is measured in bits per second, not bytes. To convert a target speed in Mbps to the correct value, multiply by 1,000,000. For example:

Desired Limit Value to Use
10 Mbps 10000000
20 Mbps 20000000
50 Mbps 50000000

This policy takes effect immediately. It does not require a gpupdate /force or a reboot, since New-NetQosPolicy applies directly rather than through a linked Group Policy Object.

 

For example this would put it to 1MB/sec:

New-NetQosPolicy -Name "Throttle engine.exe" ` -AppPathNameMatchCondition "engine.exe" ` -ThrottleRateActionBitsPerSecond 8MB

Step 3: Verify the Policy Is Active

Confirm the policy was created and is applied:

Get-NetQosPolicy -Name "NovaBACKUP Engine Throttle"

To confirm it's actually limiting engine.exe traffic, start a backup job and monitor the process in Task Manager > Performance > Open Resource Monitor > Network tab. The throughput for engine.exe should stay at or below the configured limit.

Step 4: Adjust the Throttle Rate

To change the limit later, remove the existing policy and create a new one with the updated rate:

Remove-NetQosPolicy -Name "NovaBACKUP Engine Throttle" -Confirm:$false New-NetQosPolicy -Name "NovaBACKUP Engine Throttle" `     -AppPathNameMatchCondition "C:\Program Files\NovaStor\NovaStor NovaBACKUP\engine.exe" `     -ThrottleRateActionBitsPerSecond 10000000 
Step 5: Remove the Throttle

If you no longer need to limit engine.exe, remove the policy entirely:

Remove-NetQosPolicy -Name "NovaBACKUP Engine Throttle" -Confirm:$false

Backup traffic will return to using all available bandwidth on the next job run.

Best Practices
  • Test before rolling out. Apply the policy on one machine first and confirm backup jobs still complete successfully within your retention window at the reduced speed.
  • Document the policy name. Use a consistent, identifiable name (as shown above) across all machines so it's easy to find and remove later.
  • Reapply after reinstalling NovaBACKUP. New-NetQosPolicy targets the file path, not the application itself. If NovaBACKUP is reinstalled to a different path, or the server is rebuilt, you'll need to recreate the policy.
  • This throttles all network traffic from engine.exe, not just traffic to a specific backup device. If the machine runs multiple backup jobs to different destinations (local and cloud), the same limit applies to all of them.
Related Articles
  • Exclude NovaBACKUP Files and Directories from Active Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware Scanning (21.x and newer versions)
  • Reaching Your Maximum Backup Speed
  • Current NovaBACKUP Version / Changelog
  • Troubleshooting

Still Need Help?

Contact NovaBACKUP Support:

  • Email: support@novabackup.com
  • Phone: +1 805-579-6700 (press 2 for support)
  • Submit a ticket: https://16246.share.hsforms.com/21oWGOmxeQpKD1M8jmfKBAQ
  • More options: https://www.novabackup.com/support