Impossibly slow backups

[Danny_Floyd]

I've had to have our HP VS80 DLT IV backup drive repaired, I've had the drive back powered off the server, put the device back on and powered the machine up again, but the backups are too slow. It's taking 60 hours to backup 41Gb of data, which just isn't feasible.

I've checked the compression within the backup job which is set to Hardware, and everything is listed in the device management which looks ok.

I don't know if it's something within Backup Exec or if it's down to a fault within the backup drive.

Can someone help me please?

Thank you

Danny

[Ken_Putnam]

Did you have to create a new tape device when you installed the new drive?


from the devices tab, right click the drive \Properties

What are the settings for

Block Size
Buffer Size
Number of buffers
Are any of the Single Block or PassThrough options selected?Message was edited by:
Ken Putnam

[Danny_Floyd]

Hi, I didn't create a new tape device because it was a repair when Backup Exec started it knew the tapre drive from previously, so I left everything as standard thinking it would be ok.

Here are the settings:

Block Size: 1k
Buffer Size: 32k
No of Buffers: 10
High Water Count: 7 (Even though you didn't ask for it)

I'm sorry, but I can't see anything to do with Single Block or Pass Through options.

[Ken_Putnam]

That 1k Block size will absolutely kill throughput.

Try clicking the "Set defaults" button and see what the block size changes to. If it doesn't change, check the manual and set whatever is the largest block size supported by the device (Usually either 32K or 64K)

Set the buffer to either 128 or 256K and leave number of buffers at 10


The others must have been implemented with v9.

[Danny_Floyd]

Brilliant, thank you Ken. I made the changes when I got into work this morning, and ran an Exchange backup; it backed up and verified the 21.5Gb in 3 and a half hours which is the norm.

Much appreciated.

Danny