edgeitguy Posted June 19, 2006 Report Share Posted June 19, 2006 We bought Retrospect Multi-server 7.0 (the current version at that time). Updated it to 7.0.344 with update 7.0.12.105. We just got around to using it. Previously, we were using Backup Exec 9. We have everything working, but we’re shocked to see that incremental backups are taking over 12 hours on our main server. With Backup Exec, an incremental backup would typically take about half an hour. Some more information for you: The server is running Windows Server 2003. We’re backing up about 350gb of data, but less than 1gb changes each day. The source drives are 6 SCSI drives on RAID 5. The destination drive is an external FireWire drive. The raw data throughput when I copy files from on drive to the other is about 20mb/sec. I saw something in your FAQs about disabling backing up of NTFS security information, so we did. It didn’t help. According to the log, almost all the time is spent idle/loading/preparing. During the backup, the scanning phase is fast, the building snapshot phase is slow, and the backup phase is fast. We’re using Retrospect’s software compression, since we’re backing up to disk. We’re doing a normal backup to a disk volume (not a file volume). The server has two 2.8ghz Intel Xeon CPUs. We’d really appreciate any suggestions. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted June 20, 2006 Report Share Posted June 20, 2006 Hi, If I recall correctly, a large amount of time spent in the idle/loading/preparing phases indicates issues with open file backup. Are you using open file backup? Can you turn it off for a backup to see if the duration decreases? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 20, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2006 Apparently, the open file backup option was already turned off, even when it states under Help that the default setting is "on". Any other suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted June 20, 2006 Report Share Posted June 20, 2006 Hi, You probably don't have the add-on license, then. What if you disable the option 'Save source Snapshots for restore.' I believe that is also covered by the idle/loading/preparing phases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Doesn't disabling snapshots make it so that restoring individual files takes hours (probably at least 12, for us)? That seems like it makes Retrospect practically unusable. Do incremental backups still work? Will the disk volume grooming continue to function? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 The option Execution - Matching - Match source volumes to Catalog File (determine which files are already in the Backup Set), along with the documentation implies that incremental backups don't work without catalog files. Am I misunderstanding something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Maybe I'm confusing Snapshots with Catalog Files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Hi, The catalog file is the .rbc file which contains sessions and snapshots. A snapshot is a picture of the source at the time of backup. I wasn't suggesting you permanently turn off snapshots, I was just making a suggestion to help you try to determine why the backup is taking such a long time to process. Unless you have an incredibly large number of files in that 350GB of backup, or a complex folder structure, I'm not really sure why it would take so long to get through the idle/loading/preparing phases. My thinking is this: if we can figure out where the problem lies, that should make it easier to figure out why you're having the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 We're trying a backup without snapshots. We have about 800,000 files. Is that an incredible number? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 That is not too big of a number. Keep in mind that you can not do a complete system restore without snapshots. The backup of permissions is probably what is taking so long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted June 21, 2006 Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 Hi, The Windows version has been tested with up to 4 million files, so you're well within the realm of reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2006 I disabled permissions backup. It didn't make a difference. Maybe that option is broken? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2006 Disabling snapshots reduced the incremental backup time from 12 hours to 1 hour, 15 minutes. I can live with that. So, any ideas on how to get snapshots working in a reasonable amount of time? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2006 Without snapshots, it won't let me restore a file without recreating a snapshot. Combined with the inability to do a system restore, leaving snapshots disabled doesn't appear to be a viable option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 Any ideas? We still don't have a solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted June 26, 2006 Report Share Posted June 26, 2006 With permissions off, but snapshots turned on, how long does it take? That is the combination you should be using for best performance and safety. 7.5 changes how permissions and snapshots work. Speed would be much better under 7.5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 29, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2006 Over 12 hours for an incremental backup, which took close to 30 mintues with Backup Exec. We have permission off. Oddly, turning permissions on doesn't affect performance at all. It makes me question whether the no permissions optimization is working as described by the docs and FAQs. Specificially, the permissions options I'm talking about are: Backup Options - Windows - Security - Back up server security information and Backup up workstation security information. Since the upgrade to 7.5 is expensive, I'm concerned about shelling out the money, because 7.0 isn't supposed to have this problem, either. It's especially frustrating, considering we recently bought 7.0. I'm worried that 7.5 won't fix it, and we'll be out another chunk of cash that perhaps should be going to Backup Exec remote server licenses. We switched to Retrospect in the first place in order to avoid per-server licensing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaeln Posted June 30, 2006 Report Share Posted June 30, 2006 I would recommend downloading and testing out the trial version of 7.5 (http://www.emcinsignia.com/try/) to make sure it works for you before deciding to shell out any money. By the way, have you tried backing up to a different disk volume? I would be interested to see the results of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2006 I didn't notice the trial. Thanks for the suggestion. We're backing up a few smaller volumes (local and remote), and they go quickly. It's the large volume with lots of files that's the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted June 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 30, 2006 Will the trial work as a temporary upgrade? Will it keep my scripts and settings? I saw this on the trial page: Please Note: Do not download evaluation software for an EMC Insignia product if you are already a licensed user of that product. In order to upgrade your retail version of an EMC Insignia product, please proceed to the Upgrade page or contact your local EMC Insignia reseller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted June 30, 2006 Report Share Posted June 30, 2006 Hi, They put up that notice to avoid existing customers generating sales leads by signing up for the trial. When you install the trial it should uninstall 7.0 for you. The configuration files for 7.0 will remain in place, and 7.5 will import whatever settings are there to a new set of configuration files. If you want to rollback to 7.0 you can just uninstall 7.5 and reinstall 7.0. The program will launch like it was never gone. For reference, or if you want to make a backup of your configs just in case, they can be located at C:/Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/Retrospect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted July 12, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 12, 2006 Quote: Will the trial work as a temporary upgrade? Will it keep my scripts and settings? I saw this on the trial page: Please Note: Do not download evaluation software for an EMC Insignia product if you are already a licensed user of that product. In order to upgrade your retail version of an EMC Insignia product, please proceed to the Upgrade page or contact your local EMC Insignia reseller. Any response to this? Is it safe for us to install the 7.5 trial? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted July 14, 2006 Report Share Posted July 14, 2006 Yes, I responded. Perhaps you didn't see it as it started a new page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgeitguy Posted July 15, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2006 Quote: Yes, I responded. Perhaps you didn't see it as it started a new page. Oops. That's what happened! Thanks for the response. We'll give the trial a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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