Very slow backups BE9.1 and SBS2003

[PaulGillespie]

Hi Guys,

I have a new Dell 1600SC with 2.4 xeon, 1.5GB RAM 2 SCSI disks and a seagate DDS4 tape drive all on the same SCSI card.

My problem is that some nights the 20Gig backup runs in just over 3 hours but most other nights it takes about 26 hours! On theses occastions the transfer rate goes down to as low as 3MB per minute!

Any clues? Do i need to transfer the tape drive onto it's own SCSI card?

I'm just confused as some nights it's great others it's terrible.

There are no AV scans or other services that would interfere with it.

Thanks in advance.

Paul

 

[dkediger]

Always recommended to have the tape on its own SCSI interface - at least not on the same channel as the disks its backing up.

If you are using Exchange/SQL, are you using the BE agents to get those backed up? With SQL, an alternative to using an agent to get the DBs is to use the SQLManager to generate a snapshot file of the DBs to disk and grab that disk file rather than using the agent to grab the online DBs.

 

[PaulGillespie]

Not backing up SQL but i am backing up exchange.

I think i'll get another scsi card for the drive and see how that goes.

Thanks

 

[LaChimere]

hi

Something sure, go on SCSI.
But if it was working fine before, try to defrag your disk first and relaunch the job

Le monde c'est de la marde!

 

[PaulGillespie]

It has always been inconsistant and slow. I thought it was because i was running 8.6 so i upgraded to 9.1 but same issues.

Thanks

 

[justin2000]

The tape drive - is it sharing a the RAID controller in the system? If it is, put the tape drive on it's own SCSI controller.

 

[PaulGillespie]

The server does not have raid just 2 scsi disks. C drive and D drive. Both disks and the Tape drive are on the same scsi cable.

Would that explain why sometimes the backup is lightening fast and other times it takes about 26 hours?

Thanks

 

[superjet]

Hey Paul,
I had a slow backup problem with Veritas 8.5.
I spent MONTHS working on it and finally I figured out the network card was not negotiating correctly with the switch. The switch was running 100Mb/Full Duplex, but the card was setting at 100MB/HALF duplex.
I forced the card to full duplex and the problem was solved.
The backups run around 220Mb per minute.
Good luck.

 

[justin2000]

Could also mean that the server is doing something during the nights of the long backups - if you look in the logs - what is taking the longest to process on those nights?

 

[PaulGillespie]

There is nothing else running at nights, i think it is slowest when backing up exchange, but i'll double check that.

Thanks for your replies!

Paul

 

[PaulGillespie]

Ok, it seems to be taking ages backing up the shadow copy componants and the microsoft information store\first storage group.

Do i need to back these up?

 

[justin2000]

No you don't if you have selected the IS from the Exchange options - it should have actually given you an error - ut maybe it is just going slow instead.

 

[AAFK]

I don’t now what kind of SCSI card you have on the server, if you are using Adaptec Ultra160 you should check that you have the latest drivers.
This was a problem on my IBM Server, I upgraded the drivers and the speed increase at least 10 times.

 

[dkediger]

Just a thought from a different thread - but do you have the Exchange M: drive deselected from the server's file based backup?

Having that drive selected is generally a no-no and can cause all sorts of goofiness with Exchange/Anti-Virus/Backup utilities.

 

[PaulGillespie]

M: drive is not selected for backup and is excluded from AV Scans.

The scsi card is on onboard dell LSI Logic PCI-X Ultra 320.

I'll get the latest drivers for 2003 from the dell site and give it a go.

I've downloaded SP1 for BE9.1 and i'll install it when the backup finishes.

3 nights ago the backup took 8 hours, 2 nights ago it took 15 last nights is still running and it's now 11.30am.

Backups start at 7.30pm.

I'll fiddle some more.

Cheers