Client backup to 5220 for file servers

[StarSister]

Just looking for any other experiences on these types of backup?

I have a physical windows 2003 file server (OS due to be upgraded at some point in the future) which has a 5TB LUN of SAN attached storage. I've had a backup attempt on a number of occasions using the 7.5.0.4 client over the LAN to a local appliance. However, the backup is only nearing a 2.5tb volume backed up after a week and half duration. The backup during the day of this live data hasn't had any performance issues for the users, however, it seems the backup would run for anoth 2 weeks and still not be near completion.

At present this server is not backed up - but its data is copied over to another server nightly and that server is backed up to tape drive during the day.

I have a few questions:

1. If I keep this server as physical the way it is, how might I better complete a full backup of the data??

2. IF in the future I were to move this server onto vmware and have vmdk disk for the data- would the vmware API snapshot method save me time, and be of benefit?

[Mark_Solutions · Accepted solution]

A few ways to improve performance...

1. Set up multiple streams from the large data disks so that many slow streams run at the same time - for example

NEW_STREAM

D:\Home\A*

NEW_STREAM

D:\Home\B*

NEW_STREAM

D:\Home\C*

etc. setting the policy to a maximum of six jobs initially so that you can assess performance.

If you current backup runs at 3MB/s then this way all six streams could run a 3 MB/s giving a total throughput of 18 MB/s - reducing your backup window by a factor of 6

2. Use flashbackup-windows to back the drive up as a raw device - this would be pretty fast as it works at block level - but if your 2.5 TB of data is on a 5TB disk you will backup 5TB of data

3. Use Fibre Transport - that way it passes the data directly to the Appiance via the SAN (if you think the network is a bottle neck)

4. Make the server an Enterprise Client SAN Media Server - let it just backup directly to tape

5. Use Accelerator - if possible with client side de-dupe. The first full backup will be slow (so set your multiple streams up first) but after that it should be far quicker

Hope this gives some ideas