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Backing up Cluster file Server with 1.5 milion file

Amgad
Level 3

I'm tring to backup Cluster file server

Two cluster nodes are configured as SAN Clients

The policy is configured to backup the clustername

the backup selection is one partition of 3T (most of it MS Office files) every 2 weeks and daily diff-incremintal backup

the daily diff-inc backup takes 11 hours

Some times backup speed less than 10 Mbps

why so slow?

4 REPLIES 4

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

One word: fragmentation.
This is causing slow read speed from disk.
Invest in an online defrag tool.

In the meantime, break down the Backup Selection into smaller chucks (start with 4 streams) and multi-stream them.
We have been able to cut down backup time for customers by breaking up the volume into multiple streams. Something like this (At one customer from +- 36 hours down to 8 hours) :

NEW_STREAM
X:\Users\a*
X:\Users\b*
X:\Users\c*
X:\Users\d*
.....
...
NEW_STREAM
X:\Users\g*
X:\Users\h*
X:\Users\i*
X:\Users\j*
.....
....
NEW_STREAM
X:\Users\m*
X:\Users\n*
X:\Users\o*
X:\Users\p*
.....
NEW_STREAM
X:\Users\.....
.....

Assuming a Windows cluster, increasing file cache and maybe page file some times help with the speed of reading files from the volume(s). Journaling might also be worth a look, for the incremental backups.

Talk with your SAN administrator, as there might be something that can be done in the storage system. Higher tier, prefetch, bigger procent read cache, etc.

The standard questions: Have you checked: 1) What has changed. 2) The manual 3) If there are any tech notes or VOX posts regarding the issue

Thank you

tunix2k
Level 5
Partner Accredited

Additional you should exclude temporary MS Office and Outlook (~..pst) files. It speeds up our Backups of clustered shares.

 

ciao

 

Martin