Slow Backup Across LAN

[stever3901]

Backup Exec server is 2014 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 ,  24gb RAM,  16 X 3tb Raid 5, 2 X E5420 2.5ghz quad core processors.  NIC is 2 1gb Ports bonded to provide 2gb.  

I have a physical Windows 2008 R2 File server with a single 1gb NIC, 12 gb RAM, E5420 2.5ghz quad core processor I'm trying to backup.  

The disk we are trying to backup is iSCSI attached storage (equallogic) using MPIO with 2 X 1gb Nic connections approx 3tb.  When I try to backup the server using the LAN NIC,  I get about 1,300MB/min backup to disk with the NIC using not more than about 50%  and the processor less than 15% utilized.  Is there a way to force the backup to use more of the resources to speed up the backups?  

I normally use the Off Host backup feature which yields about 3400MB/Min however I'm using Appassure now for hourly snapshots and it Doesn't like the Equallogic VSS component and will rebase everytime I use the Equallogic VSS to backup the server. I'm not ready to give up Appassure but need the backup to tape of Backup Exec thus the reason I am trying to backup via the LAN vs using Off Host.

Thoughts?

Steve

[CraigV]

...you can try turning on Jumbo Frames on the server NICs, but it might kill the performance of the server.

Thanks!

[teiva-boy]

Perhaps you're misunderstanding the benefits of MPIO?  It is a session or connection based load balancer.

BackupExec is not a multiplex or multistream capable product.  To backup a server, all drives are backed up serially, thus, only one connection is opened, and in effect, you're only using ONE 1GbE link in your MPIO group.

And with today's modern hardware, jumboframes is a good thing on iSCSI networks.  bigger payload, less interrupts for the CPU to process, means more data ingested/processed/etc. 

You should just use offhost backup with BackupExec.  It's worked with EQL since BE 12.5 or so.