exchange 5.5 mailboxes very slow to backup

[David_Richards]

When backing up our network. I find that exchange 5.5 mailboxes are backing up so slowly. I mean 1 - 20mb per minute. We only have 44 mailboxes and its taking over 6 hours to complete exchange alone. When backing up files on the same machine and other services and servers across the network, I get speeds up to 200+mb per minute. Normally our entire backup will only take 6 hours. I could probably do a file copy of exchange quicker from my home dsl line.

Now exchange is sitting on the media server with the tape drive too. Its a DTL8000. The server is windows 2000 sp4. We are also using mcafee group shield and virus scan. I have tried lots of suggested methods that I have found in the KB. But what ever I do just does not make any difference. I am wondering if there is anything you can suggest.

Any ideas/pointers/suggestions/tips/advice would be quite helpful at this stage.

David
davidr@eurosoft-uk.com

[Ken_Putnam]

Don't don brick level backups at all?

Seriously. They are extremely inefficient, and CANNOT be used for disaster recovery. And the v5.5 restores were/are a roll of the dice as to whether they would work or not

See http://mail.tekscan.com/nomailboxes.htm for a more detailed discussion.

(20MB/min on a local system sounds about right for speed, BTW, we've seen reports of 5-6 MB/min over a network)