My backups get slower and slower

[jstrickland69]

I am running Retrospect Multi-Server 7.7.620 on a Win7 x64 Enterprise virtual machine, with 8GB RAM. The machine is connected to a gigabit network. My problem is that as I start my backups they generally start out showing a speed of about 700 MB/min backup. However, as the backups continue through the night, they consistently get slower and slower. I understand that certain file types and sizes can slow a backup down. However, the speed usually goes back up when the particular file or computer is completed. That is not the case here. The speed just gets slower and slower. It has gotten down to about 88MB/min. Are there any recommendations for what I could look for that might be slowing things down?

[duke69111]

I am having a similar problem running 7.7. I am doing a duplicate backup. My pc client (Windows 7 - Hard wired to a gigabit router and gigabit NAS, although my pc is only 10/100) is only a 100gb hard drive and it is only backing up at 3.5 - 5 MB/Minute. I a backing up to a 2tb Network Attached Storage. I have two other computers on the network and I can get 200-500MB/Minute on one and 700MB on the other. Not sure what is up with this. my pc is not running a gigabit connection, but it should run at least as fast as my other two machines.

 

Also everytime I start a backup, it deletes at least half or more of the previous backup.

 

I am also getting 5-6 thouand could not compare warnings after a backup is complete.

 

The one backup I got fully completed took 2+ days.

 

I have tried rebooting, uninstall/reinstall, defraging.

 

Any one have any ideas?

 

Thanks.

[warmbowski]

I am running Retrospect Multi-Server 7.7.620 on a Win7 x64 Enterprise virtual machine, with 8GB RAM. The machine is connected to a gigabit network. My problem is that as I start my backups they generally start out showing a speed of about 700 MB/min backup. However, as the backups continue through the night, they consistently get slower and slower. I understand that certain file types and sizes can slow a backup down. However, the speed usually goes back up when the particular file or computer is completed. That is not the case here. The speed just gets slower and slower. It has gotten down to about 88MB/min. Are there any recommendations for what I could look for that might be slowing things down?

 

I see this too with my full backups to file backups on a SATA drive. What does your CPU do during the course of a long backup? My full backups are about 350 GB, and at the start of a backup I will have very low CPU (like 15%) and speeds around 1100MB/min. Later on, the speed can reduce to 200MB/min, with a CPU working around 90% (with about half of the usage from Retrospect and half from System). I assumed it had to do with the MD5 digests that are going on during the backup. But I don't see why that should get more difficult as the backup progresses.

[Mr_G-Funk]

I see this as well with my backups, and I plan on calling support to see if they have any suggestions. I've been using Retrospect for Windows since version 7.5, and around 5 plus years of usage, and under a number of configurations. For comparison's sake I will list out the last configuration running 7.5 and then upgraded to 7.7 due to Exchange 2010. We'll call this System A.

System A Specifications:

Single, multi-core Xeon processor with 8gb of RAM running on Windows 2003 server R2

1gb fiber network adaptor to a core HP 9308 switch

SCSI connector to a 16 drive external array - Each drive SATA 1TB / 7200rpms - Raid 5 = 15TB of data storage (using round numbers) - Raid is all hardware based.

SCSI connector to a Sony StorStation LIB-AIT4 drive / Library.

Performance: Could run 7 simultaneous jobs from clients connected directly to, and clients not connected directly to, the core 9308 switch and I would get at least, mean ave. 70 MB/min, across all jobs. When one job would finish, the performance would bump up.

Clients I was backing up: File servers, Transactional Data servers, Sharepoint and Exchange. Os's were a mixture of Server 2003 R2, and Server 2008 (Exchange 2010) system.

 

System B: (the current system - at my new job)

Single multi-core Xeon processor with 8gb of RAM running on Server 2008 SP2 (32bit)

6 internal SATA 3TB / 7200rpms drives - Raid 5 = 15TB (round numbers again) slung off a 3ware SATA Raid Card that can handle 3gbps throughput.

Dual 1gb Intel nics, teamed, for 2gb throughput going into an HP 5308xl switch (I'm configuring up a 9308 presently)

Running Retrospect 7.7.620

SCSI connector to a Sony StorStation LIB-AIT3 drive/library

 

It doesn't matter if I'm running 1 job or 5 this is what happens. The "copying files" portion of the job starts, and I can see the performance throttle up to 120 MB/min - then 260 MB/min - then up to 600 MB/min <-- all the while you can see the files that are being copied just flying by. Then the job seems to hang (but it hasn't) - it seems to hang for a long period of time, say 10, 15 plus minutes - then the performance drops down to 11.5 or 12.9 or 13.6 MB/min and stays that way for the rest of the job.

Mean average for the jobs comes out at 12.6 - and again it doesn't matter if only 1 job is running or 5 simultaneously - they all act the same way. The part where the job has seemed to hang, I believe is when the throughput is massively throttling down.

 

Restores: From the 15TB data volume on the Retrospect server to a directory called "restore" on the 500gb boot drive (I never restore directly to the "original" location - are like freaking greased lighting.

 

Backup to tape from the disk jobs - are like freaking greased lighting.

 

Clients I'm backing up: Right now, all 2003 servers, that are old and the data volumes are heavily fragmented. I know this can be a source of the poor performance and I'm in the process of building up new servers to replace them. The servers are File servers, and one Transactional Data server. Oh - and all clients have 1gb network connections.

 

Also - I'm backing up a Network "Client" - It's a 1TB mirrored NAS. A Seagate Black Armor NAS-220 to be precise. So this unit does not have to retrospect client installed, but Retrospect can see it, and copy the files. The NAS-220 is like 2 to 3 months old, meaning it's new, not fragmented, and it also has a 1gb nic. Throughput on the NAS-220 backup job is slighty different. First the performance throttles up to like 500 MB/min, then throttles down to like 11.9 MB/min - Then throttles back up - and then, back down.

 

For the life of me I do not understand why I have such poor performance. I'm going to be checking my switch (again) - and I read something about Win 2008 Server and shadow copies or something (I'll have to find and re-read the post) - but the restores on the Retrospect server from data volume to boot volume indicate to me that the hardware within the server is up to snuff due to the high performance. Same with the backup to tape from the disc backup sets.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas as to why I as well, am having such poor performance, and that's with only running 1 single backup job. With running only 1 backup job the thing should be screaming ...............

 

Again, any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas would be greatly appreciated. I may even copy this and start a new thread ......

 

Thanks ....

 

G.