NBroM Posted October 8, 2003 Report Share Posted October 8, 2003 I am managing a large backup of my company's servers and desktops using 6.0. I have never had any problems backing up the servers but as I introduced the desktop computers, backing up only the Documents and Settings folder, the time needed for the backup has exceeded my allotment. For the most part, the desktop backups have very few new additions yet still take between 10 to 30 minutes normally, to the extreme of an hour and 40 minutes, for one computer and only a minute and a half for another. These times are consistent, throughout the week using incremental backup. The number of files seems to range from 50 thousand to 150 thousand. I was wondering what is making these backups take so long, and how I can reduce the time required. Is there a way to utilize two Retrospect servers? Any help would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted October 9, 2003 Report Share Posted October 9, 2003 Hi Are you backing up just the Documents and Settings folder as asource subvolume or have you selected the entire hard drive with a selector to backup the folder? Using subvolumes takes some setup time but it cuts down on the scanning time and copying the registry. Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NBroM Posted October 9, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2003 All the Documents and Settings folders are selected as subvoumes. Recieved same results this morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted October 10, 2003 Report Share Posted October 10, 2003 Hi The log should have some stats on the actual time required to run the backup for each client. Can you give us a general Idea of how long it is taking? Also, how may files do the session contents show have actually backed up? Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NBroM Posted October 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2003 Sure, here are some logs of the various desktops. - 10/9/2003 10:42:07 PM: Copying Documents and Settings on DAYNOC010 10/10/2003 12:24:52 AM: Snapshot stored, 71.7 MB 10/10/2003 12:25:04 AM: Execution completed successfully Completed: 9 files, 173 KB Performance: 0.1 MB/minute Duration: 01:42:56 (00:10:58 idle/loading/preparing) That is the worst offender, with 140,319 files comprising 2.25GB - 10/9/2003 10:37:17 PM: Copying Documents and Settings on DAYNOC005 10/9/2003 10:38:32 PM: Snapshot stored, 9,198 KB 10/9/2003 10:38:35 PM: Execution completed successfully Completed: 5 files, 482 KB Performance: 0.1 MB/minute Duration: 00:01:16 (00:01:23 idle/loading/preparing) This is one of the best, with 56,710 files comprising 0.79GB - 10/10/2003 3:14:05 AM: Copying Documents and Settings on DAYNOC007 10/10/2003 3:14:05 AM: No files need to be copied 10/10/2003 3:40:11 AM: Snapshot stored, 22.4 MB 10/10/2003 3:40:16 AM: Execution completed successfully Duration: 00:26:09 (00:03:48 idle/loading/preparing) This is a good example of the logs for the majority of the desktops, with 43,691 files comprising 2.74GB. - 10/10/2003 3:03:41 AM: Copying Documents and Settings on ENGPCH001 10/10/2003 3:13:45 AM: Snapshot stored, 7,385 KB 10/10/2003 3:13:48 AM: Execution completed successfully Completed: 1 files, 2,440 KB Performance: 0.1 MB/minute Duration: 00:10:05 (00:01:33 idle/loading/preparing) This Desktop has only 14,526 files comprising 0.189 GB, so the time doesn't seem to be necessarily directly linked to the amount or space of the files backed up. Also the fact that so few files are being backed up... thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikee Posted October 11, 2003 Report Share Posted October 11, 2003 You really have no problem. Retrospect is taking it's time to build the snapshot. In your case it's ~1500files/minute. Size of the files does not matter that mutch at all. Get used to it or change your backup solution... I got "used to it" by not taking the snapshot during weekday backups. And taking snapshot only on the weekends... Unfortunately, this does not work for Windows 2003 (and XP?) since snapshot of security settings is taken always...( I have mostly w2k and w98 here) Mikee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NBroM Posted October 13, 2003 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2003 Thanks Mikee, I'll try and stop the snapshots, when you say it won't work on Win2k3, do you mean as the Retrospect server or backing up a server with Win2k3? Most of my backups are of 2000 pro or 2000 server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikee Posted October 13, 2003 Report Share Posted October 13, 2003 I might not have the right information here (I'm still at 6.0) but I read on this news group that backing up security is mandatory when backing up Windows 2003 with v6.5. It might be that this applies to all flavors of NT for Rv6.5.... Bear in mind that when snapshot was not created for your data your restored files will lack security and path information... For large amounts of files, it seems that Retrospect has chased itself into a corner with its snapshot feature... Mikee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsnyder Posted October 13, 2003 Report Share Posted October 13, 2003 You might have just solved a problem for me (or at least pointed me in the right direction). I am reviewing some of my slower backups and am finding that the copying of the data while slow is not horrible. However, once it starts to build a snapshot it can add hours to a backup. In fact, I have some jobs where it takes 3x longer to build the snapshot than it does to backup the damn data. So my next question is am I really losing anything by not using the snapshots? They seem to triple my back up times in some cases and I really don't see a huge benefit to them. Am I wrong? Maybe I just don't understand them well enough so any info would be greatly appreciated. Just to give you some numbers...running just three execution units at once it is taking 4.5 hours to back up 12GB and that is with Verify Off! I had to turn off verify in order to get the jobs to run decently. Thanks, JJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted October 14, 2003 Report Share Posted October 14, 2003 Hi Shapshots are pretty key for doing point in time restores so I wouldn't turn them off if you can help it. Snapshots get really slow when there are a lot of temporary internet files and other cache files on the system. I think you are only trying to backup pst files and documents right? If that is the case you may just want to specify 2 or 3 subvolumes for each user. Doing things like this will avoid those extra files all together. Also make sure that you have the registry backup and workstation security backup turned off in your script preferences (if you haven't already) Nate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikee Posted October 14, 2003 Report Share Posted October 14, 2003 Hi J. Speaking from multiple clients/selected folders only backup perspective: Without snapshot one cannot browse backed-up files ( in tree format ) or restore files into their folders. Security and "day-stamp" info is gone also...That is why even though I don't have time for snapshots for every day folder backups I take a snapshot every 8 days. If you have file matching enabled than probably the safest way is to not take the snapshot the first time the client is being backed up to the new backup set( backup it self takes time ). And take it on subsequent backups ( file backup time is short )... I think what Dantz have to come-up with to fix this problem is local snapshot feature where it'll take a snapshot of the portion of file tree that contained files that were backed up during the backup session. Mikee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arsenic Posted January 16, 2004 Report Share Posted January 16, 2004 Man, do yourself a HUGE favor and use the selector "All Files Except Cache Files" in your backup scripts. It will dramatically decrease your backup/snapshot times. I did this and it made all the difference in the world. Who needs to backup temporary internet files anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikee Posted January 19, 2004 Report Share Posted January 19, 2004 Limiting the amount of data to be backed up you'll decrease the backup time. It will not affect snapshot creation, however. thanks, Mikee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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