Improving data transfer rate

[Joe_Huser]

We are using BE Ver 8.6 on a Windows 2000 server to back up around 240G of mainly compressed .tif files. We just installed a Dell PowerVault LTO-3 external tape drive. The first test of this backup took 25 hrs. The transfer rate was around 142 MB/min. We have since updated the SCSI (Adaptec 7899) Win2K driver which greatly improved the transfer rate on a smaller test job.

The bulk of the data being backed up are small files in many folders which may be slowing the rate.

It has been suggested that upgrading to BE 10.1 may improve the transfer rate. Can anyone confirm this before we make the investment?
Thanks.

[Steve_O_2]

First I think I would invest in a Adaptec 29160 or 39160 SCSI card to take adavantage of the LTO 160mb interface. Your 7899 is probably only rated for 40mb off the card.
THen make sure you have the latest Veritas Drivers installed. Im assuming your local backup on the local media server are faster. That drive should be pushing 300mb/min or more on the local server .

[Joe_Huser]

Thanks for the info. I have indeed already ordered a 29160 card just to see if it helps. The spec. sheet on the Dell server showst the onboard 7899 to be a 160MB/s interface so I'm not sure the new card will help.

The drives on the server are partitioned with a C: and D: drive. C: being the home of the OS and D: storing the .tif files. Interestingly the backup of the C: drive ran at 1660 MB/Min. Our small test of approx. 11G of the compressed .tif data (after the scsi contr. driver update)ran at 652.4 MB/Min which is about twice as fast as it was originally. The problem seems to be associated with the 278G of .tif files. We're going to run the whole job again tonight and see how much improvement there is with the new scsi driver in place.
Thanks again. Joe

[Ashutosh_Tamhan]

You may find the following technotes helpfull as well.
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/237444.htm
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/191807.htm
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/249090.htm

You may want to see what issues have been resolved in the latest build of Veritas BEWS 10.0 5520:
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/276379.htm

Release Notes for VERITAS Backup Exec (tm) 10.0 for Windows Servers revision 5484
http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/264482.htm

Upgrading to the latest build might not necessarily lead to good throughput rates.

Regards,
Ashutosh

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.

[Joe_Huser]

Well we ran the job again over the weekend - backing up 234G took 24:45:31 hrs. The transfer rate in the log was 150 MB/Min.
Thanks for the links to the articles. Actually we had already read all of them and tried the suggestions, none of which made a significant difference. Prior to installing the new LTO-3 drive we used Disk Keeper on a regular basis to keep the drive defragmented.
The new SCSI card should be in today or tomorrow. If that doesn't help we plan to try uninstalling BE and running a native backup using the Microsoft utility just to see the difference.
I think the nature of the data we are backing up - 15 Million small compressed files in many, many folders is what's slowing the rate down. This may be as good as it gets.

[Ken_Putnam]

You don't have to uninstall BackupExec to test NTBackup.

Just shut down all BackupExec services before you start the NTBackup job.