Backup to disk slow over network...

[Georg_Hehberger]

Hi all!

I'm trying to backup a file server, all in all 430 GB.

The Agent is deployed correctly, the storage attached is a scsi U160 Array, the same goes for the backup server.
They are connected by GB Ethernet and are on the same subnet. OS is Windows Server 2003.

However, the backup speed is approx. 150MB/min.

As you might agree this is terrible slow. Where should i start looking for bottlenecks? Both servers run at 5-10% CPU, have more than 60% RAM availible and the net utilization never exceeds 3%

Can you give me any pointers on where to start looking into this?

thx in advance, Georg

P.S.: English is not my first language, so please excuse my mistakes.

[Neil_Richings]

This will most likely not be network congestion but more to do with you SCSI setup..

Your U160 card, re-download latest drivers/patches/firmware for it, dont care if you've done it do it again.

Neil'os McNeil'os.

(had the exact same problem at a site and after exhausting server & network capactity did the above and wham, straight back up to advetised cross network speed..))

[Joel_Morgan]

I'm using a Dell Powervault 745N NAS with Backup exec 10 on Server 2003. I was able to increase my backup-to-disk speed from 240 MB/min to 657 MB/min on a gigabit network connection by making the following changes.

1: Disable indexing service on the B2D server.

Start --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Add/Remove Programs
Add/Remove Windows Componets
Uncheck Indexing Service and click next

2: Disable Open File Option on the backup job. This made the most difference.

3: Disable Antivirus service before backup and restart when completed using pre and post job commands.

pre - net stop "Symantec Antivirus"
post - net start "Symantec Antivirus"

4: Change the cluster size on the backup destination disks

You can find the cluster size using the command "fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo d:"

Large files or files that increase in size should use 16- or 32-KB clusters instead of the default 4-KB cluster size.

In the Disk Management snap-in, you can specify a cluster size of up to 64 KB when you format a volume. If you want to change the cluster size after the volume is formatted, you must reformat the volume.

5: Defragment your hard drive and schedule reoccuring defrags.

at 7:00 /every:M "defrag d:"

6: Specify a static size for the page file using windows recommended maximum.

7: Updated network card drivers and Serial ATA controller firmware.

8: Updated to latest OS patches including SP1.

[Georg_Hehberger]

Hmm tried everything but it still yields no joy...
after some testing I found out that if i copy a file via explorer from the server to the backup server the network graph soars up and I get the speed I would expect from a GBit copper wire.

That even works DURING a backup, so for some reason backup exec does not use the system resources it has access to...

any ideas about that?

best regards, georg

[Ameet_Thakkar]

As an additional information, kindly refer to following steps mentioned in the MS Q article as well.
1)How to troubleshoot network connectivity problems (Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 325487 )
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325487


2) Multiple Default Gateways Can Cause Connectivity Problems ( Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 159168 )
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;159168

-----------------------------------------------
For test purpose carry out local backup on Backup to disk folder and observe the throughput & speed.

[Georg_Hehberger]

Thanks for your reply.
I really appreciate that a pro replyed to my question, but what I don't get is how does your answer correspond to my last post in this thread?

I fully understand how hard it is to support an end user, I did this for quite some time in my career, so I'm really thankful for your attention, but a little more one topic would be well appreciated.

greetings, Georg

[Ajit_Kulkarni]

Hello Mr Georg H,


I apologise for the inconvenience caused because of the delayed response.
Please let us know if your issue still persists.

Regards

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked "assumed answered" and would be moved to "answered questions" pool.

[Andrew_Perry]

Hi Georg,

I am not sure if this will help you, but I just know myself from previous problems that I have had backing up over the network....

One problem we had was caused by the Settings on the port/switch for the remote server that was being backed up. In our case, it was set to Full 100, and the card on the server couldn't cope. Simply setting the port/switch to Auto has solved a lot of my backup issues.

Again, sorry if this is no help, but just thought I would offer my experiences :)

Andy Perry

[Ross_Smith]

This may not be relevant in your case, but I had exactly the same problems backing up to a Maxtor NAS device. Network transfers were lightning fast in explorer, but BackupExec was nearly 8x slower.

In the end I tracked it down to software RAID-5 in use on that device. I re-formatted the volume as a striped set and performance went through the roof. We are now finding that BackupExec gives slightly faster performance than Explorer as you would expect.

This would tie in with the previous suggestion of trying SCSI drivers. It would appear that BackupExec's disk access is pretty fragile when it comes to getting the best performance out of it.

Personally I'm beginning to suspect that their bodging of a tape driver to write to the file system was not the best approach...

Ross

PS. If you do get this fixed, keep an eye on the fragmentation of your drive. I've no proof yet but it's looking like BackupExec has somehow manage to cause horrendous fragmentation of it's B2D files on our NAS device:
http://www.averysilly.com/Defrag%20report.jpg