Where to begin.... Hmm....
The server in question is running Backup Exec 2010 R3 5204 64-bit (latest live update was yesterday in hope that it would fix our problem--which it didn't). The OS on the server is Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard SP1 64-bit. I'm backing up a locally attached hard drive to a locally attached LTO4 tape drive. The backup job is backing up some data from another server across the network, but that's not where the slow down is.
There is no virtualization going on. No VMware. Just an old-school backup of a drive letter to a tape drive.
The local hard drive is presented to this server via the FlashCopy feature on an IBM DS3400 disk array. This way, I can back up a static image and not have to contend with open files & other stuff. It's important to note that we've been running BE on this machine (using FlashCopy and an LTO4 tape drive) for several years with no performance issues. Things really got bad when we installed R2 on the machine a couple of months ago. Since then, things have been sub-optimal.
About a month ago, I installed BE 2010 R3 on the server, and things got better. Pre-W2008 R2, our backup jobs would run around 1,400 MB/min. Since installing BE2010 R3, the job rate has dropped to 1,075 MB/min on this particular hard drive. Remember, no hardware was changed, just the software.
Since Monday, our job rate for this same hard drive has dropped to between 440 MB/Min and 700 MB/Min. This is not good. As I type this, last night's backup is still running (and managed 726 MB/Min onto the LTO4 for this hard drive). Last night's backup for this disk drive started at 11:02:42pm and finished at 3:24:02pm today. That's nearly 16.5 hours to back up 747GB of data!
Any idea where I should look next? There was a Windows Update over the weekend, but it was for root security certificates. Changing the architecture right now is not an option (though a disk-based backup is in our future).
