ComputerX Posted June 25, 2009 Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 Hi all, A while back I asked about what hardware and OS would be the best platform for Retrospect. I didn't get any response, so I decided to figure it out for myself. I failed. After running Retrospect on a few machines and operating systems I am still not sure just what Retrospect is doing most of the time. Since I was not able to come to any conclusions I decided to post a bunch of screenshots and let you decide for yourself. All the screenshots are all from my new Retrospect server. OS:......Windows.Server.2003.Standard.x64.SP2 CPU:.....Intel.Core2.Quad.Q9400.2.66GHz RAM:.....8.GB.G.SKILL.PC2.6400 MB:......GIGABYTE.GA-EP45-UD3R Video:...GIGABYTE.GV-NX72G512E2.GeForce.7200GS.256MB Boot:....WD.Caviar.Black.WD6401AALS.640GB.(also.has.catalogs) P/S:.....CORSAIR.CMPSU-650TX.650W eSATA:...SiL3132.based Backup.Sets: Green:......Internal.disk.set.with.two.WD.Caviar.RE2.WD7500AYYS.750GB.drives Speckled:...Internal.disk.set.with.two.WD.Caviar.Black.WD1001FALS.1TB.drives Red:........External.disk.set.with.two.Seagate.Barracuda.7200.11.ST31500341AS.1.5TB.drives ................AMS.DS-2350S.eSATA.enclosure.(SteelVine.SiL4726) Blue:.......External.disk.set.with.two.Seagate.Barracuda.7200.11.ST31500341AS.1.5TB.drives ................AMS.DS-2350S.eSATA.enclosure.(SteelVine.SiL4726) I used three applications to look at performance data; Task Manager, default perfmon, and Performance Monitor configured to show Avg. Disk Queue Length for every logical disk. In the Performance Monitor showing disk queues the colors match the name of the backup set and the C drive is blue. (Blue "C", get it? I crack me up.) (Sorry for the ugly formatting) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 Preparing to Groom an internal disk set. As you can see, this is heavily dependent on disk speed. (Can anyone tell me how to get the screenshots inline without having to host them somewhere?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2009 (edited) Here is the Matching phase of the Groom operation. This looks CPU bound and is using all cores, at least a little. This is an example of when I wish Retrospect would use more of the CPU. The portion right after the red line in perfmon shows the transition from Preparing to Matching. There is a little swap activity and a couple spikes on the disk queue. Another thing that I have noticed when Retrospect is running is occasional flurries of swapping. I haven't yet figured out when or why. Edited June 25, 2009 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 Here is a local backup to a disk set. The destination is an internal SATA drive. I don't reacll how the source was connected. I know it was a PATA drive, but I don't remember if it was on the motherboard or through a USB bridge. This is one of the first sets of screenshots I took. Before I started overlapping windows and using the expanded perfmon. One screenshot of the Task Manager and one of the default perfmon showing total disk queue. Again we seem to be disk bound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 Forgetting a backup set. Just a little CPU spike, but nicely distributed across cores. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 Opening the catalog of a disk set for the first time. This was part of moving to the new hardware. This Config75.dat had never seen the catalog. Again, nicely distributed across the cores. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 Rebuilding the catalog for a disk set with SATA drives connected to the motherboard. Perfmon is showing the disk queue for the drive with the data hovering around 1 while the C: drive (also holding the catalog) spikes occasionally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 Rebuilding the catalog for drives on the eSATA bus. I only showed total disk queue, dagnabbit. (rebuild catalog, groom, assert error. rebuild catalog, groom, assert error. wash, rinse, repeat.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 26, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 Yet another time rebuilding a catalog. I really do a lot of this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2009 (edited) Here we have a network backup in the Copy phase. Edited June 29, 2009 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2009 Here we have two network backups in the copy phase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2009 And here we have three network backups in the Copy stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2009 Here is a network Copy of a very slow client. This shows how the bottleneck is sometimes at the client end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2009 Here is that same slow client still running, but with a second Copy as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2009 Here is a backup in the Preparing phase (and sucking CPU) while another backup is in the Copy phase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2009 Here is one backup in the Scanning phase, while another is in the Copy phase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerX Posted June 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2009 The Matching phase of a backup set transfer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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