diff --git a/apps/stalwart/stalwart-fresh-deployment.yaml b/apps/stalwart/stalwart-fresh-deployment.yaml
index 220edfa..5201c47 100644
--- a/apps/stalwart/stalwart-fresh-deployment.yaml
+++ b/apps/stalwart/stalwart-fresh-deployment.yaml
@@ -289,7 +289,7 @@ spec:
   jobTemplate:
     spec:
       backoffLimit: 2
-      activeDeadlineSeconds: 600  # 10 minute timeout
+      activeDeadlineSeconds: 1800  # 30 minute timeout (was 600s; retries + affinity settling can push past 10 min)
       template:
         metadata:
           labels:
@@ -297,6 +297,17 @@ spec:
         spec:
           serviceAccountName: stalwart-backup
           restartPolicy: OnFailure
+          # Co-locate with stalwart-0 so both pods share the same hcloud block volume
+          # attachment (RWO). Without this the backup pod can be scheduled on a
+          # different node and hits FailedAttachVolume/Multi-Attach (DEV-468).
+          affinity:
+            podAffinity:
+              requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
+              - labelSelector:
+                  matchLabels:
+                    app: stalwart
+                    statefulset.kubernetes.io/pod-name: stalwart-0
+                topologyKey: kubernetes.io/hostname
           containers:
           - name: backup
             image: alpine:3.19