B2D duplication slowing down

[Bryan_McDonald]

Backup Exec 2010 R2 running on Windows 2008

Basic situation is that I run 3 jobs. One runs directly to tape and takes around 35 hours. Two other jobs run to B2D and take around 30 hours each.

The 2 B2D areas are on the same disk volume which is internal to the server.

First week I run these I get good duplicarion speed from B2D to tape for both B2D areas. Over subsequent weeks they both slow down. Example for one of them is Week 1 - 3,638 Mb/min over following weeks this goes down to 2,460  to 2,047 to 1,640 and would get slower if I left it.

If I delete all the BKF files (around 300 in each area default 4Gb size) then the cycle repeats Wk 1 fast then slowing down.

I'm assuming that once the BKF files are created then Backup Exec just reuses them rather than delete and recreate with same name so surely disk fragmentation shouldn't be an issue. Once the jobs have run once the number of BKFs only changes marginaly maybe an extra one or two per week.

I could keep deleteing them every 2-3 weeks but would prefer a more permanent fix if possible so if anyone has any ideas?

thanks

[CraigV]

Hi,

Have you checked to see whether or not any AV installed isn't perhaps actively scanning the B2D folder? If so, put in an exclusion for it and try again.

Thanks!

[Bryan_McDonald]

Hi Craig

all BKFs are excluded from AV scanning. And although that might have explained general slowness I'm not sure it would help explain the slowing down I'm seeing.

thanks

[CraigV]

...have you considered upgrading to BE 2010 R3 with SP3 installed? It is the latest version which fixed a number of issues with the previous 2...you can use your current licenses, and would need to grab manual copies of the Data/Catalogs folders before doing the upgrade.

Get BE 2010 R3 (ISO) and SP3 on the links below:

 http://trialware.norton.com/files/fc/Backup_Exec_2010_13.0.5204_MultiPlatforms_Multilingual_DVD.iso

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH208601

Once upgraded, update the remote agents after installing SP3 and running LiveUpdate again to get any subsequent patches. Then try the backups again.

I don't say this is the answer to your question, but you are 1 version behind, and support woudl most likely encourage you to upgrade too.

Thanks!

[Bryan_McDonald]

the upgrade to SP3 is in the plan - just as soon as I get the cash for a new server. An in-place upgrade to SP3 on our other backup system went totally wrong and we lost all jobs, schedules and catalogs (in spite of Symantec assistance) - not going that route again in a hurry! 

[CraigV]

...if you grab copies of the Data and Catalogs folders before doing the upgrade, it provides you with a manual way to recover the server if the upgrade fails again.

Thanks!

[Bryan_McDonald]

... drifting slightly from the problem but as I said our upgrade was done with support from Symantec so we has copies of everything, just couldn't get our new install to accept them (upgrade screwed totally so had to do a rebuild to R3). That was our "small" system so only had to re-create about 10 jobs. This problem is on our main system which has 30 odd jobs + 25 duplicates so would prefer not to screw it! On the original issue we have multiple B2D jobs but these are the only ones that display this behavior which makes it even more puzzling.

[Vishal_Shinde]

just to eliminate the mounting/dismounting of no. of BKF files while running the duplicate job causing the  issue, you may increase the BKF file size from 4 GB to 50 GB and check if it has any impact on the performance.

Regards,

S