Extremely Slow Backup

[JMiser]

Hello everyone,  this is my first post to the boards and I know I will get a good answer here.

I'm pretty new to Backup Exec, coming from a UNIX background.

I have inherited a backup that is so slow that it is almost worthless.  Any help is appreciated.

PROBLEM:  Backup Job Rate is 209.00 MB/min.  We are backing up about 1TB weekly, differentials M-F.  The weekly takes about 5 days to run!  So much for differentials.  I know our setup is bad, but I don't know what to fix first.

DETAILS:
Backup Server: Windows 2000SP4 2GB Ram, Quad Intel CPU (2391 Mhz), NIC 10/100/1000

Software: Backup Exec 12.0  Rev. 1364 (Installed on backup server) (Installed Updates: SP3)

Backup Byte Count: 1,010,582,645,351 (from a test run)

Source: 11 Servers

Destination: An old Dell Optiplex GX270 workstation - 3Ghz P4 CPU - 2.5 GB ram, 3 x 1TB Drives RAID(1.7 Available), 10/100 NIC     [Setup as a NAS using OpenFiler]

Job Priority: Set to HIGH

Databases:  None.

Any ideas where to start to get this throughput up?  I don't have the funding to replace everything.  I know a Gigabit NIC in the NAS would help, but I don't believe we are even getting close to hitting the wall on the network.  Is our NAS just too slow?  Is Windows 2000 the problem? We have the option to upgrade to BackupExec 12.5.

I don't know where to start.

Thanks!

-JMiser

[Rockey_Reed]

First off Welcome!

A few things you may want to check are:

1. Check that the NIC are set to 100 Full

2. Check antivirus so the data is scanned inbound on the clients and outbound on the BEWS

3. Check the resources on the Task Manger on all machines to see if you can address if the issue is memory, an application (e.g. antivirus, document archive, etc.) or CPU starvation

4. There are several articles and whitepapers available at www.support.symantec.com that can assist with leading you down the right road.

You will see an improvement if you upgrade the OS.  I have really been impressed with W2K8, but even W2K3 will show an improvement.

Your objective is to make the write heads the bottle neck.  When they are saturated you've hit the hardware limit