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| Thread ID: 103989 | 2009-10-13 01:15:00 | One for the Backup Exec experts | nofam (9009) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 820015 | 2009-10-13 01:15:00 | Just upgraded the tape drive for our Windows server (x346 Xeon, running Terminal Services, acting as PDC and file/print server) to a Tandberg HH LTO3 (SCSI connection), which necessitated an upgrade to Backup Exec 12. It's all working fine, but given that it's all SCSI-based DAS, the transfer speeds are a lot less that I would've expected from what I've read about LTO3. The fastest I've seen it running at is around 620Mb/minute. I've got hardware compression enabled, but am just wondering if the SCSI card (this, but it's rated at 160Mb/second! (www.adaptec.com)) is a limiting factor? I know performance varies based on file size/quantity (lots of small files take longer that several large ones etc). Any ideas? As I said, it's working, but I'd still like to see it a bit faster if possible. |
nofam (9009) | ||
| 820016 | 2009-10-13 03:08:00 | Is the LTO3 drive the only device on that controller? What was the old drive, was it on the same controller, and what performance w as it getting? How fast is the data source where the backup is coming from? I would've expected at least double that throughput, and that would be assuming backing up from a moderately-busy drive. Have seen these tape drives hit ~3.5gbyte/min when the source is also a high-spec drive (striped 15k cheetahs for example). |
inphinity (7274) | ||
| 820017 | 2009-10-13 23:15:00 | Is the LTO3 drive the only device on that controller? What was the old drive, was it on the same controller, and what performance w as it getting? How fast is the data source where the backup is coming from? I would've expected at least double that throughput, and that would be assuming backing up from a moderately-busy drive. Have seen these tape drives hit ~3.5gbyte/min when the source is also a high-spec drive (striped 15k cheetahs for example). Yeah, only device on the SCSI controller - old drive (on same controller) was an HP LTO 1; I'd estimate it was running around 200Mb/minute. The data source is two RAID 1 disk arrays in the server, one holding the O/S, the other holding all the user directories etc. I adjusted a few of the Backup Exec features yesterday (increased Block Size, Buffer Size, and Buffer Count, disabled Write single block mode, and Write SCSI pass-through mode), and it's helped a small amount. Have updated the driver for the Adaptec SCSI card today, and will test tonight. Hopefully this will have a big effect. It's a pretty straight-forward setup - most of the issues I've seen online stem from NAS data being piped via slow backbone switchgear, causing the tape drive to 'shoeshine' as it waits. DAS issues seem to be few and far between! :( |
nofam (9009) | ||
| 820018 | 2009-10-14 00:39:00 | Well, it depends on th file size as well. On 1 server with compresses sql backups of around 200mb, I get 1.4Gb/min, on small files on the same server, I only get 450Mb/min. Have you service packed Backup Exec, did you upgrade the agents (if backing up other server), did you use the backup Exec drivers instead of the Tandberg drivers?. 650mb/min isnt too bad....how big is the job Backup exec is at 12.5, why didnt you go to that? |
SolMiester (139) | ||
| 820019 | 2009-10-14 00:40:00 | Oh, by the way, PDC & TS is a no no....tut tut! | SolMiester (139) | ||
| 820020 | 2009-10-14 01:10:00 | Oh, by the way, PDC & TS is a no no....tut tut! +1. As to file size, yes, 1000 files at 1MB each will take significantly longer than 1 1GB file under most conditions, as there is extra overhead per file. |
inphinity (7274) | ||
| 820021 | 2009-10-14 01:20:00 | Oh, by the way, PDC & TS is a no no....tut tut! Yeah I know - not my setup originally, but it's a pretty well locked down box, and there's only around 30 or users rdp'ing to it at any one time, so performance isn't really a problem. BEX is running SP3, and has no remote agents. Am using the latest Symantec drivers for the drive; total backup is around 140Gb. It's actually the Quickstart version of BEX 12 that came bundled with the drive - we had been using BEX 9 with the original drive, but it didn't recognize the Tandberg. Performance isn't bad, but I would like to have it a bit better. |
nofam (9009) | ||
| 820022 | 2009-10-14 02:08:00 | Does the quick start include software assurance, you could try for the upgrade....160Mb/sec should be fast enough..., how many spindles on the DAS? What you could do is create 5 or 6 really big files and do a backup of them, say 5 x 250, check the throughput.....if faster, your will then know the bottle neck is the spindle count unable to saturate the bandwidth. |
SolMiester (139) | ||
| 820023 | 2009-10-14 02:37:00 | Does the quick start include software assurance, you could try for the upgrade....160Mb/sec should be fast enough..., how many spindles on the DAS? What you could do is create 5 or 6 really big files and do a backup of them, say 5 x 250, check the throughput.....if faster, your will then know the bottle neck is the spindle count unable to saturate the bandwidth. There's no software assurance AFAIK, as it's a bundled deal; but if/when we ever get the Xeon 5500 G6 I was promised (grr!) we'll need to upgrade to get allowance for the remote agents running in the VM's. There's two discs per RAID array, so it's not built for outright speed. But it's really a general purpose file/print server. not built for max IOPS. Will see how I go tonight with the latest SCSI card driver!! Cheers Sol/Inphinity! :thumbs: |
nofam (9009) | ||
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