Backing up many small files takes forever NBU 7.5.0.3

[pmc214]

Hello, I have a directory i am attempting to backup that contains roughly 1TB of small images. This policy runs forever, i.e. 20 hours getting 22% complete.

I also get some message "change journal NOT enabled for <source>"

Is there anything that can be done to help?

Thanks

[AmolB]

Refer to http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO56177

[Marianne]

The 'change journal' message is normal if this feature has not been enabled on the client.

The problem with lots of small files has been a headache for as long as as I've known NBU.
Is this filesystem heavily fragmented? Constantly busy? 

Have you tried to break down filesystem into multiple streams?

Are you backing up to dedupe storage that supports Client-side dedupe?
If so, you can enable 'Accelerator' feature in the policy.

[mph999]

Flash backup perhaps ?

[Yogesh9881]

Yes, i agreed with Martin

[pmc214]

yea, i dont see a policy type for Flaskbackup and nothing in the license keys.

multiple streams - no

dedup, - no

[Marianne]

FlashBackup policy type is enabled with Enterprise Client license. 

Without additional licenses to enable FlashBackup or dedupe with Backup Accelerator, you can enable Multistreaming and break down Backup Selection into multiple streams - between 4 and 8 should give good performance without affecting restore speed too much.

It all depends on layout of filesystem - something like:

NEW_STREAM
X:\folder1\a*
X:\folder1\b*
X:\folder1\c*
.....
..
NEW_STREAM
X:\folder1\g*
X:\folder1\h*
X:\folder1\i*
.....
NEW_STREAM
X:\folder1\m*
X:\folder1\n*
X:\folder1\o*
.....
NEW_STREAM
X:\folder1\r*
X:\folder1\s*
X:\folder1\t*
......
etc..

[ashish_patil01]

The advantage of Flashbackup is you can take a backup of raw disk path and while running restore you can restore a single folder and Flashbackup is based on snapshots.

Thanks

Ashish

[pmc214]

so Marianne if I am backing up several drives on 1 server and the problematic drive is (F:) 

F: has over 1 TB of small images sitting in 2,146 folders, i.e.

F:\example\Folder2146

what is best practice to divide all this up to accomplish multistreams?

[Marianne]

Are the folders numbered?
Folder1
Folder2
up to
Folder2146?

This could be quite a challenge to try and group into streams as per my example... 

I think you need to justify Enterprise Client license to enable FlashBackup policy!