# Server backup times very slow (mB/min etc) Ntbackup and BackupExec; times typical?



## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

I have two different servers.. one runs Windows x86 Server 2003, the other x64 Server 2003.

In both cases, I am backing up data off of a RAID 5 3 disk array (400gb) to another internal drive call it (E, IntBackup).

The times with NTbackup and BackupExec are very similar.

(x86)ServerA with Sata150 drives is backing up 292gb of data at the rate of 438 MB/min in 11hrs 24 mins (This is only about 7.5 MB/s!!) -Ntbackup

(x64)ServerB with Sata300 drives is backing up 308gb of data in 15hr 9 mins or 347 MB/min (even less MB/s) with BackupExec, set to Hardware compression, otherwise use software.

Side note: Ultimately both servers will be sending their data across Gigabit eithernet to do the backups to a central backup server, but my tests so far doing this test (as well) have only yielded about 400 MB/min across the wire too.

Of the data that is being backed up, includes: SQL server instances (and in another server, serverC, will have Exchange data as well).. hence the preference for NTbackup and BackupExec.

Are these backup times typical with this software.. is there an alternative software that can do the data backup as well (netbackup?).. its critical though, in the future, that on the other server, Exchange data and mailboxes and transaction logs can be backed up too though.

Is there a way to increase the speeds.. I believe I have tried turning off compression, but the speed increase (i think) was minimal..

Thanks for any tips


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

What type of controller do you have? I have seen this before inexpensive controllers. Especially with onboard controllers with no memory. The memory is used as a buffer while the controller calculates the parity.

I definitely know it isn't an issue with Veritas as we are presently using BackupExec 10.0 with an LT0-3 drive and it's pushing 1.26GB/min from a 6 disk RAID 5 to tape and the bottle neck here is the tape drive.


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## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

crazijoe said:


> What type of controller do you have? I have seen this before inexpensive controllers. Especially with onboard controllers with no memory. The memory is used as a buffer while the controller calculates the parity.
> 
> I definitely know it isn't an issue with Veritas as we are presently using BackupExec 10.0 with an LT0-3 drive and it's pushing 1.26GB/min from a 6 disk RAID 5 to tape and the bottle neck here is the tape drive.


The controller is a 3ware Escalade 8506-4lp pci-x, in which both drives are on the same controller (x86 server)..

On this server I get really good results in the HDTach benchmark.. at least 52 MB/min on each drive (these drives are sata 150's)

The other server (x64) uses a ARC-1120 pci-x 8 port card, the drives are on the same card and are sata 300's, giving me about 60 MB/s reads on each drive in HDTach (450 MB/sec burst read).

Of course HDTach that I have doesnt test the write speeds, maybe that is slow, I'm not sure..

It sounds like you are getting 21.5 MB/sec or so.. going from disk to tape (is this a backup of individual files.. or just a backup of a backup, bkf inside a bkf)? Are you using hardware or software compression?

Again, my tests on the drives themself show good results, which puzzles me as to why the backups run so slow on either server (at least I know its not one software or server over the other too)..


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

markm75 said:


> It sounds like you are getting 21.5 MB/sec or so.. going from disk to tape (is this a backup of individual files.. or just a backup of a backup, bkf inside a bkf)? Are you using hardware or software compression?


This is individual files to tape and using hardware compression. I also forgot that I added in the time it took to verify the backup so the transfer is probably quicker than stated.

Does your controller have it's own memory? 

I probably will not be able to respond today as I am getting off work now.


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## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

crazijoe said:


> This is individual files to tape and using hardware compression. I also forgot that I added in the time it took to verify the backup so the transfer is probably quicker than stated.
> 
> Does your controller have it's own memory?
> 
> I probably will not be able to respond today as I am getting off work now.


Thanks for the responses..

I'm not sure if it has its own memory.. whatever comes with the board by default.. I believe they had some base memory though.

Is your Raid 5 setup a SATA 150/300 type drive system? What controller card are you using?

There arent any other BackupExec settings I could tweak to make it faster are there?

Do you defrag the data drive regularly (I havent done so on ours, doubt that it would make a huge difference)?

I may try to find a benchmark tool to check the write speeds as well.. I'm assuming they would be a little slower than the 50-60 i'm getting on reads for sata 150/300...

Cheers


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

Actually our writes are probably faster than that. We presently have a Dell PowerVault DAS consisting of 14x 73GB Maxtor Atlas drives. 2 separate RAID 5 arrays (6 drives and 1 hot spare on each array). This is tied into a Dell Server with a PERC 4/DC U320 PCI-X SCSI adapter with 128MB of dedicated memory and battery module. Pretty much like this one.


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## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

crazijoe said:


> Actually our writes are probably faster than that. We presently have a Dell PowerVault DAS consisting of 14x 73GB Maxtor Atlas drives. 2 separate RAID 5 arrays (6 drives and 1 hot spare on each array). This is tied into a Dell Server with a PERC 4/DC U320 PCI-X SCSI adapter with 128MB of dedicated memory and battery module. Pretty much like this one.


Our board in the x64 definitely has its own memory (128mb).. Even at home on my home pc.. with sata 300 drives there (no raid).. with acronis.. I get 7.33 MB/sec there too..


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## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

I did a straight file copy of 10gb.. it took 4min and 19 seconds.. so I was getting about 38 mB/sec write speeds.. this extrapolates to 2hr 9 min for 300 GB, whereas 300gb with BackupExec is taking 15 hours with no compression (or with hardware).


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

I'll try and do a disk to disk back up with Veritas and see what happens.


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## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

crazijoe said:


> I'll try and do a disk to disk back up with Veritas and see what happens.


That would be great..

Here is how I configured Veritas11d (and the results):

d to e (single bkf) high priority, full, reset archive bit, no compression, using VSP snapshot 

After 4 min 19sec 2100 MB/sec, 8 678.43628 MB, or 33.51 MB/sec
After 8m 40s: 2000 MB/sec , 16 251.564 MB or 32.5 MB/sec

1364 MB/min after 26 mins (36,634,000,000 bytes)
602 MB/min after 4h 32mins (172,100,000,000 bytes)

After 51min : 1080 MB/min and 57,600,000,000 bytes

As you can see, as time went on things slowed down considerably.


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## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

markm75 said:


> That would be great..
> 
> Here is how I configured Veritas11d (and the results):
> 
> ...




Btw.. my backups are going into one bkf file, not multiple files, not sure if i mentioned this.


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## markm75 (Jan 26, 2007)

Any luck on doing that HD to HD test with BE?

Here is my newest conclusion and results from other programs:
It seems logical that it is BE issues... When installing BE.. I believe it asks if you want to install BE drivers or use the built in ones? Which option is most people using.. or at least, those who actually get good throughput? I cant recall which I chose.. I'll have to try reinstalling.

I am also trying the demo for ShadowProtect (doesnt work on x64 servers though).. On our x86 server.. it backed up a 332gb partion in 4hr 7 mins (22 MB/sec) and shrunk it to 242 GB with normal compression. Unfortunately this program doesnt let you select which files/folders to backup, only the whole partition, but the compression is very good. In BE.. with hardware compression, I never saw any difference in the size backed up and the backup file size.

I also tried Acronis 9.0 and did the whole partition (at home I tried files and folders and only got around 7.3 MB/sec).. It did the 332GB partition in 4hr 41mins or 20.19 MB/sec with a final size of 242GB with normal priority and compression.

Today I will install MS DPM and see if I can get close to that 1 hr timeframe..

Its interesting, but DPN is about 1GB (setup files) whereas ShadowProtect and Acronis are only 9mb+ (i think acronis is somewhat bigger but not 1GB).. I really dont care if DPM will do it in 1 hour 

If this ends up being the case, I will probably forget about BE and use DPM (if it supports remote agents etc). I'm not sure if DPM will do tapes, so I may be stuck with BE? (havent researched DPM just yet).


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## crazijoe (Oct 19, 2004)

Haven't had a chance yet. Been kinda hectic around here lately. Will post as soon as I get a chance.


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