backup to disk lack of speed issues

[moali]

How best is it to setup the backup to disk jobs so you are getting the best possible speeds during backup.

I have windows 2003 Enterprise Sp2 installed on local backup exec 12 media server.

This is on 2 raid 5 partitions.

currently my backups run between 100- 300 mb/s my verifies run at 3000 mb/s

Is there anyway in BE12 to have the backup processing handled by the BE12 media server.

I think the processing is handled by the remote agents - is there anything i could do with these Agents to speed things up during backups.

[Ken_Putnam]

the slow down could be either your network or the media server itself.

Do backups of data on the media server crawl also or just network backups?

Is the RAID array the only thing on that SCSI channel, or are there other devices also?

if you just do an XCOPY of a large amount of data from one of the target servers, does that run slowly also, or does it run OK?

[RahulM]

You might also want to have a look at the following articles.

1:How to correct slow backup performance, slow virus or pre-job scans, and agent initialization problems on fragmented Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 Server Hard Disk Partitions

http://support.veritas.com/docs/237444

2:Improving and troubleshooting Backup Exec performance

http://support.veritas.com/docs/285756

3:How hard disk compression can affect backup and restore jobs on a Windows NT File System Partition

http://support.veritas.com/docs/271438

4:Slow backup performance or the error "Access is denied" occurs during a Granular Restore Technology (GRT) enabled Exchange backup to a Backup to Disk folder on a RAID 5 drive

http://support.veritas.com/docs/289271

5:Best Practices for using removable media and the "Backup to Disk" feature in Backup Exec for Windows Servers

http://support.veritas.com/docs/239539

[RahulM]

As for moving the processing from the remote computer to the Backup Exec server you could use the ADBO option which allows you to use the OFFHOST feature.

The Symantec Backup Exec for Windows Servers Advanced Disk-based Backup Option (ADBO) provides the "Offhost backup" feature. The offhost backup feature enables Backup Exec to move the backup processing from the host computer, which is the remote computer that contains the volumes selected for backup, to the Backup Exec media server. The offhost backup creates a snapshot of the volume(s) that are selected for backup on the remote computer. The snapshots are then imported to the media server, where they are backed up.
After the backup, the snapshots are deported from the media server and mounted back on the remote computer and resynchronized with the source volume. This process requires solutions from hardware or software providers that can support transportable snapshots that is, snapshots that can be imported to and deported from the media server. The Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) provider is used for each volume in the offhost backup. An offhost backup job is performed on one remote computer at a time

For more information please refer to the following article.

Requirements for the Offhost Backup feature (part of the Advanced Disk-based Backup Option)

http://support.veritas.com/docs/284355

[moali]

a big thank you for the helpful responses.

Yesterday i used a workstation as my backup media server running without raid (with BE12) i got speeds between 400 - 500 mb. comapred too 100 - 250 on raid 5 server

I am in the process of removing the raid 5 and leaving the disks without any raid.

I'll test and let you guys know what speeds i get.

I would have thought that the speeds from a Raid 5 whould have given me a faster throughput compared to having no raid.

I am not too bothered about redundancy as I'll then backup to external USB / tape once backups are completed to the local drives on the Media BE12

I'll go through the docs that have been recommended too.