Slow Incremental Backups to Firewire Drive

[pattad]

I'm using Retrospect 6 to backup from a Dell 8200 (1GB RAM/120GB drive) to external Firewire drives (SmartDisk Firelight 40GB drives).

 

 

 

It seems to take an inordinate amount to time to do an incremental backup (I'm not backing security attributes).

 

 

 

For example, I can backup (a "true" backup - not a disk copy) my entire C: drive (50,000 files, 12GB) in 1 hr 14 mins with 2 mins spent idle/loading/preparing yet it takes 2 hours to incrementally backup just 214 files/300MB (almost the whole 2 hours spent idle/loading/preparing).

 

 

 

During the idle/loading/preparing time, the disk activity light on the Firewire drive is constantly illuminated.

 

 

 

Any idea why my incremental backups are slow?

 

 

[AmyJ]

If you look in the log, what is the time break down between the different operations? Can you tell what operation is taking up the most time? Copying? Building Snapshot? Comparing?

 

 

 

If this is Windows XP, try disabling "system restore" from System Properties for "all drives". (This tab can be found by right clicking on my computer and going to properties). This will improve backup stability.

 

 

[pattad]

Thanks! Turning off System Restore fixed the problem - what used to be a 2 hour incremental backup now takes 2 minutes. Instead of spending an enormous amount of time "preparing to execute" it starts copying files almost immediately.

 

 

 

Any idea why Retrospect has this problem with System Restore? It would be nice not to have disable System Restore before doing a backup (particularly as that causes all saved restore points to be deleted).

 

 

 

Here's a typical log entry from one of those 2 hour incremental backup sessions:

 

 

 

Executing Immediate Backup at 12/1/2002 6:20 PM

 

12/1/2002 6:20:16 PM: Copying Main (C:)

 

12/1/2002 8:26:12 PM: Snapshot stored, 48.5 MB

 

12/1/2002 8:26:18 PM: Comparing Main (C:)

 

Completed: 753 files, 459.7 MB

 

Performance: 479.6 MB/minute (437.8 copy, 530.4 compare)

 

Duration: 02:06:53 (02:04:57 idle/loading/preparing)

 

 

 

and here what it looks like with the new 2 minute version:

 

 

 

Executing Immediate Backup at 12/2/2002 6:50 PM

 

12/2/2002 6:50:39 PM: Copying Main (C:)

 

12/2/2002 6:53:05 PM: Snapshot stored, 48.3 MB

 

12/2/2002 6:53:10 PM: Comparing Main (C:)

 

Completed: 174 files, 78.0 MB

 

Performance: 719.7 MB/minute (467.8 copy, 2339.2 compare)

 

Duration: 00:02:33 (00:02:20 idle/loading/preparing)

 

 

[AmyJ]

In reply to:

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Any idea why Retrospect has this problem with System Restore? It would be nice not to have disable System Restore before doing a backup (particularly as that causes all saved restore points to be deleted).

---

 

 

 

There is a conflict between the two programs currently on Windows XP - only when writing to hard drives. System Restore tries to take control while Retrospect is accessing the drive, which causes the stall, and will on some systems completely lock the machine.

 

 

 

We are looking at these issues, but don't currently have any other workarounds.

[pattad]

Seems like a rather curious problem. If Retrospect and System Restore are in conflict in this manner, why does this problem only show up on an incremental backup? If you delete the .rbf file and redo the backup from scratch everything works fine.

 

 

 

Thanks for all your help!