Typically the restart file is several times the size of the history file. You may find the model is capable of writing the history file (wrfout*) in netCDF format, but may fail to write a restart file. This is because the basic netCDF file support is only 2GB; however, the default WRF compile builds the code with large file support, which allows files up to 4GB. If you are still reaching this maximum, you can set io_form_restart=102 (instead of 2), which forces the restart file to be written into multiple pieces, one per processor. As long as the model is restarted using the same number of processors (which is the recommended practice anyway), this option works well.
From WRFcoordination created by jesusff: FPS-URB-RCC/WRFcoordination#3
Several groups had problems with restart files when running the test simulations. A similar problem is reported here and seems related to the large size of the restart files: https://forum.mmm.ucar.edu/threads/wrf-exe-error-while-writing-restart-files.11776/
This was included in the users guide for v4.4