Exchange 2010 backup to tape takes too long

Hi,

You should be able to see how long it takes on a resource by checking the Job Log. If this isn't clear there, increase the level of logging (this increases the size of the job log though, so be aware of that!).

Do you run any sort of Exchange maintenance tasks during the week that might be clashing with the job completion?

Have you tried to create a new job and selection list to rule out corruption of either of these? Are you running BE 2010 R3 with the latest SP? If not, might be an idea to upgrade to this, considering you can use the same licenses.

Thanks!

Hi Craig,

I'm running R3 with SP3 on both the media server and the agents on the Exchange server.

The job log only gives me the entire job time, it does not seperate between the differenet phases of the job.

There was an Exchange maintenance task that we already moved to 03:00. I also disabled the antivirus but I don't think this is the problem.

As I mentioned the Backup process runs at a very good job rate.

I didn't tried to create a new job and selection list yet. Will try tonight and update tommorow.

Any other thoughts in the meantime?

The TNs below might assist you:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH52120

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH70960

Thanks!

Thanks for the references but I don't think they are relevant.

The first TN addresses the issue of B2D GRT backup.

The second one addresses 32bit systems and Exchange 2003 & 2007. We use 2010 and 64bit.

However, does the amount of active jobs on the media server affects the cataloging process? Becase we have around 10 concurrent jobs running at every point in time throughout the night. Most of them are B2D but the Exchange jobs are to tape. Can this affect the Updating Catalog phaze? and if so, how come it only affect this particular job more than the others?

Also, the backup of the 4 mailbox stores sometimes overlaps thoughout the night. Is there any problem with that?

Well, they may if you are backing up the Information Store in 4 separate jobs. I've run concurrent jobs and haven't had an issue with this.

Try running the backup of Exchange during the day and see if you get a similar issue. Are there AV scans etc. running during the backup?

Thanks!

I didn't understand your first answer - can 10 active jobs on the media server (most of them B2D) generate such big I/O that will make the updating catalog phase take so long for one particular job?

I forgot to mention the we use GRT to backup the Exchange server.

I don't know if it's wise to could run the job during the day because it can affect the performance of the Exchange...

As I mentioned in earlier, I already tried to disable the AV completely during the night.

It may...it never happened with me, but it might happen for someone else. That's all subject to a specific environment, how the backups are done, to where etc.

GRT is fine, and recommended to backup Exchange anyways as this allows item-level restores.

Thanks!

Well, tried a new selection list and a new job but got same resaults. :(

I'll try to get permission to run the job during daytime when there's less traffic on the Media Server (although there's much more trafic on the Exchange server...) and update later.

...if you have disk space available, can you try running the backup to disk as well to see if this speeds things up?

Thanks!

Hehe, This job already ran for quite some time to disk and I already created a topic on this forum because the B2D job tool around 18 hours to complete. But since these are plain SATA disks I thought this was the cause for the slow job rate. This is why I swiched back to tapes.

But also for the B2D job, the Updating Catalog was the part that took most of the time.