Netbackup Catalog online full backup is very slow

[ajalboush]

I have netbackup 7.1 installed on windows 2003 server, when I do catalog full backup i suffer from bad performance, about 280 GB took about 18 hours, any help please. 

[ajalboush]

I am working on defrag. now. 

[Mark_Solutions]

Great - let us know the results when it has been done

Out of interest (and it may also be relevant) what disk is the D drive?

It is local, RAID 5 / RAID 0, SCSI, SATA, SAS?

May be worth thinking about using faster disk / RAID for the catalog drive?

[ajalboush]

We Have 4 X 300 GB Parallel SCSI harddisks configured as RAID5, and the C and D are on the same array. 

[ajalboush]

it is a must to do the defrag. offline, or i can do it online, because from 6 hours am running the defrag. and still 4 %,

D drive size is 761 GB and the free space is 258 GB. 

[Mark_Solutions]

It will take a long time to defrag your drive

The reason we reccomend that NBU is off line is that we dont want the defrag acting on files that are in active use and some of the catalog files will be active during backups and daily NetBackup cleanup (image expiry) operations.

The choice is yours but that is our recommendation.

Otherwise use a commercial defrag tool that detects disk activity and does the defrag constantly during quiet time (I am sure you know the one I am thinking of)

[ajalboush]

the defrag. is done now, i attahced report after it finished. 

[Mark_Solutions]

Have you tried the catalog backup again since doing the defrag?

[ajalboush]

yes, it is still very slow. 

[mph999]

Well, it seems therefore that the issue is down to the fact that he disk does not have the performance to 'run NetBackup' and, be backed up at the same time ...

Options I guess are to either move the caalog to disk that has some aceptable performance (eg, a striped disk group) or archive the catalog to make it smaller.

Martin

[Mark_Solutions]

I agree with Martin, which is why I asked about the physical disk being used.

Get some SATA or SAS disk and move the catalog etc. to that disk

(or add the new RAID Set, shutdown NetBackup, copy the entire contents of the drive [use robocopy or similar so that all rights are maintained], swap the drive letters around and then restart NetBackup)

Hope this helps

[tom_sprouse]

The second defrag report shows the following items of concern... 

Volume NETBACKUP (D:)

• Volume fragmentation
•    Total fragmentation                        = 47 %
•     File fragmentation                         = 91 %
• File fragmentation
•     Total files                                = 281,543
•     Total fragmented files                     = 9,976
•     Total excess fragments                     = 7,555,855
• Pagefile fragmentation
•     Pagefile size                              = 7.81 GB
•     Total fragments                            = 1
• -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Areas of concern... 

1) Your page file is located on this drive... please move it back to C: or another volume... This could be a huge performance hit on this volume. (Suprisingly, it contiguous with only 1 fragment)

2) Of the 9,976 files that are fragmented... there are 7.5 Million Fragments... 

NetBackup will need to be offline during the defrag... and perhaps a 3rd party defrag utility may be best for this type of situation.

3) In the original Defrag Report is also showed some Oracle Files on the System.  Is Oracle Installed on this host?

[ajalboush]

i am planning to move the master to new hardware, my plan is to make backup for the catalog then retore it to the new master, but here i am facing problem in the backup becuase it take about 20 hours to finish, and i am afraid that it will take the same time for restore, but omly i have 8 hours for backup and restore, so what do you suggest for me in this case? 

regaring the page file i removed it from D, i will check the performance and see.