Compression - Speed up jobs?

[BobMc]

Good afternoon,

I am looking at a couple of ways to speed up the back-ups we do with Symantec Back-up Exec 2012 and im wondering whether or not somebody can confirm if compressing back-up jobs will speed up the time taken to complete?

Also, is hardware compression the best route?

We use an Ultrium HH5 Tape machine.

I know I could test this out myself one night, but im cautious about making changes without doing a little research first.

If someone could advise I would greatly appreciate it.

Kind regards,

Bob

[Siddhant_Saini]

Hello Bob,

You might want to refer to the 'Compression' section of the following article: http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO23086 . 

Along with that, please refer to the following article: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/understanding-compression-backup-exec

Edit: For Backup Exec 2012: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH49521

Backup Exec 2012 Tuning and Performance guide: http://www.symantec.com/docs/DOC5481

[lmosla]

Bob,

It very likely will, but a no one is capable of a guarantee.  

This link has some good information:  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH49521

[pkh · Accepted solution]

Compression will definitely slow down your job due to the extra processing compressing the data. Using hardware compression offload the work to the tape drive so the slowdown is minimized but there will still be a slowdown

[BobMc]

Thanks alot this is brilliant.