rossc Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 Howdy from a newbie in Texas, I'm evaluating 7.5 as a replacement to our existing backup solution from a competitor. I have had trial running for about a week now, and so far am impressed with its ease of configuration and simple, straightforward interface. I am concerned though, by how slow my first full backup went and would appreciate any input into what I might have done wrong in the configuration and how I might be able to improve the speed/throughput. Environment: Backing up 4 servers and eventually up to 10 XP desktop clients. The 4 servers are: SQL, Exchange, File Server, and application Server (where Retro lives) All are Windows Server 2003 with SP1. Exchange is 2003. SQL is 2000. I have a full Gigabit setup: Gigabit NICS on all servers, CAT5e, and a Gigabit switch. All servers are current-model DELL PowerEdge with hefty Xeon processors and 2gb of RAM. My first full backup (not automated yet) was configured with just the 4 servers as sources. It took just over 13 hours to complete the backup! The old solution I used, non-Retro, took just shy of 6 hours to complete. While running, I monitored the network performance and noticed that my network utilization on the Retro server was always below 1%. Usually hovered around 0.15 % I am backing up to a disk on the Retro backup server box, no tape or external drives involved at all. Any ideas on why the network util., i.e. throughput, is so very slow? I really want Retro 7.5 to work for me, and I believe it will if I can figure-out why it runs so slow. Thanks a LOT in advance for any help or input. As i said, i am a newbie, so please be understanding. Thanks, -Ross Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 You don't specify how much data was backed up in those 13 hours. Checking the log, you will find throughput in MB/min. How much? FYI: Many small files backup slower than few large files. Did you verify the backup? When did you measure the network utilization? When Retrospect was scanning? Or when it was actually backing up files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rossc Posted April 6, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 Thanks for your interest and your help.... Last night I stopped a backup in progress after it took 8 hours to backup 9.9 GB from the system drive of a network client server! I am pasting the text from the retro log file for this operation below: 4/5/2006 8:12:55 PM: Copying Local Disk (C:) on dominic 4/5/2006 8:12:55 PM: Connected to dominic File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\dhcp\backup\new\j5003ACC.log": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\dhcp\backup\new\j5003ACD.log": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History\MBSchema_0000022399_0000000000.xml": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History\MBSchema_0000022400_0000000000.xml": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History\MBSchema_0000022401_0000000000.xml": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History\MBSchema_0000022402_0000000000.xml": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History\MBSchema_0000022403_0000000000.xml": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History\MetaBase_0000022399_0000000000.xml": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History\MetaBase_0000022400_0000000000.xml": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History\MetaBase_0000022401_0000000000.xml": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History\MetaBase_0000022402_0000000000.xml": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\History\MetaBase_0000022403_0000000000.xml": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) 4/6/2006 3:56:55 AM: Snapshot stored, 266.7 MB 4/6/2006 3:57:09 AM: Comparing Local Disk (C:) on dominic 4/6/2006 4:10:00 AM: Execution completed successfully Completed: 85674 files, 9.9 GB Performance: 43.3 MB/minute (22.2 copy, 790.5 compare) Duration: 07:57:04 (00:10:56 idle/loading/preparing) As you can see, performance was 43.3 MB/minute. Obviously something is configured wrong or there is some sort of issue causing such slow performance. Surely I should not expect it to be normal for it to take 7 hours and 57 minutes to backup 9.9 GB of data from one networked "C:" drive. I noticed that it would go very slowly on large files, and then speed up considerably when it hit a patch of lots of small files during the copy process. Please give your thoughts and input into why this is going so slowly, what should I check? Thanks again, -Ross Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 Quote: Performance: 43.3 MB/minute (22.2 copy, 790.5 compare) Yikes! The backup is REALLY slow (22.2 MB/min), but the compare is as fast you would expect. I'm sorry, but I have NO clue why this happened. What if you manually copy a folder from the source to the destination? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akwete Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 Quote: While running, I monitored the network performance and noticed that my network utilization on the Retro server was always below 1%. Usually hovered around 0.15 % I am backing up to a disk on the Retro backup server box, no tape or external drives involved at all. Any ideas on why the network util., i.e. throughput, is so very slow? I really want Retro 7.5 to work for me, and I believe it will if I can figure-out why it runs so slow. I observed the same poor network utilization backing up from a remote client to disk. Using Veritas Backup Exec 10 remote agent for windows server/workstation I could get up to 80% network utilization. I am quite anxious to see what solutions exist for this problem as I wish to make the switch too. Unfortunately to date, I see a lot of similar complaints, with no solutions offered. Make me wonder if EMC acknowledges this is a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 Quote: Unfortunately to date, I see a lot of similar complaints, with no solutions offered. Hi. No-one, I repeat: no-one come to this forum to praise Retrospect, even though there must be thousands of happy users out there. Anyway, we have had performance problems sometimes. It has always been bad drivers for the ethernet card, a bad ethernet card or even a bad ethernet wall outlet. Never any problem with Retrospect itself. Note that in some (most?) occasions, there were no other apparent problem copying files, surf or whatever. It was just Retrospect having problems. (So it MUST be Retrospect, right? Wrong, see above) Regards Lennart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akwete Posted April 7, 2006 Report Share Posted April 7, 2006 Quote: Quote: Unfortunately to date, I see a lot of similar complaints, with no solutions offered. Hi. No-one, I repeat: no-one come to this forum to praise Retrospect, even though there must be thousands of happy users out there. Anyway, we have had performance problems sometimes. It has always been bad drivers for the ethernet card, a bad ethernet card or even a bad ethernet wall outlet. Never any problem with Retrospect itself. Note that in some (most?) occasions, there were no other apparent problem copying files, surf or whatever. It was just Retrospect having problems. (So it MUST be Retrospect, right? Wrong, see above) Regards Lennart Maybe you should address the specific issue of slow backups and not rant and rave. If you demand objectivity, you must do the same. I have stated my observation: network performance indicators on my backup server report much higher network utilization using Symantec Veritas Backup Exec, compared with EMC Dantz Retrospect. In a separate thread I have actually posted transfer rates comparisons, using the same machines. Please comment on these observations. Otherwise, enjoy the Nordic air lol! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted April 9, 2006 Report Share Posted April 9, 2006 Quote: Quote: Quote: Unfortunately to date, I see a lot of similar complaints, with no solutions offered. Hi. No-one, I repeat: no-one come to this forum to praise Retrospect, even though there must be thousands of happy users out there. Anyway, we have had performance problems sometimes. It has always been bad drivers for the ethernet card, a bad ethernet card or even a bad ethernet wall outlet. Never any problem with Retrospect itself. Note that in some (most?) occasions, there were no other apparent problem copying files, surf or whatever. It was just Retrospect having problems. (So it MUST be Retrospect, right? Wrong, see above) Regards Lennart Maybe you should address the specific issue of slow backups and not rant and rave. If you demand objectivity, you must do the same. I have stated my observation: network performance indicators on my backup server report much higher network utilization using Symantec Veritas Backup Exec, compared with EMC Dantz Retrospect. In a separate thread I have actually posted transfer rates comparisons, using the same machines. Please comment on these observations. Otherwise, enjoy the Nordic air lol! What I meant was that you will get the wrong impression about the software by just reading these discussions. People only go here when they are in trouble, giving the (false) impression of buggy software. Note that I did NOT say that Retrospect is bug free, because it isn't. I also wrote about MY experience with bad performance and what I did about them. I have nothing more to offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pronto Posted April 10, 2006 Report Share Posted April 10, 2006 Hi, the latest stable version of retrospect is imho 6.5. We have a lot of problems with a solaris client in version 7.0 and the windows client in version 7.5 is known by it's slow network troughput. Be carefull... Bye Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akwete Posted April 10, 2006 Report Share Posted April 10, 2006 Quote: Hi, the latest stable version of retrospect is imho 6.5. We have a lot of problems with a solaris client in version 7.0 and the windows client in version 7.5 is known by it's slow network troughput. Be carefull... Bye Tom Thanks for the information. At least this tells me the through issue is peculiar to 7.5 and hopefully EMC might correct this soon. I'm being prudent by limiting the growth of my Veritas setup and holding out for Retrsopect as frankly the latter is a better fit (features and price wise.) The Big Kahuna. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 10, 2006 Report Share Posted April 10, 2006 I can second that observation on the slow throughput. I typically get 400 to 500MBs on Veritas and only half that on Retrospect. Definitely isn't a driver or hardware issue since I have both systems in place and can compare on identical hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akatsuyama Posted June 15, 2006 Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 I am running a Dell 2850 3.6GHz Xeon processor with 2GB RAM, Windows Server 2003 SP1 Standard Edition with 33 GB on my "C" drive and 425 GB on my "D" drive. When I first upgraded to 7.5 I ran in to all kinds of problems. My throughput going to a SATA drive dropped from 2-3000 MB/min down to 200 MB/min and my network performance dropped from 1200 to 40 using a 7.5 client on a 7.5 backup server that is duplicating Retrospect files over a Gigabit network. The SATA backup problem turned out to be a Windows Registry problem that occurred with large backup files: http://kb.dantz.com/display/2n/kb/article.asp?aid=7950&n=6&s= entitled: "Backup program is unsuccessful when you back up a large system volume. For my Gigabit file transfer problem I reverted back to the 7.0112 client and got back up to 1200 MBytes/min. I haven't tried the latest 7.5 client yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekr0phage Posted June 15, 2006 Report Share Posted June 15, 2006 Hi, You should try the latest 7.5 client. It should have fixed the speed issues many people were experiencing when 7.5 was initially released. There were a few good threads specifically on this topic, but I can't seem to pull them up at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted June 18, 2006 Report Share Posted June 18, 2006 Quote: At least this tells me the through issue is peculiar to 7.5 and hopefully EMC might correct this soon. I heard that the latest 7.5 client is faster than the previous 7.5 client. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RetroNudge Posted June 23, 2006 Report Share Posted June 23, 2006 I have been using 7.5.116 CLIENT and have good network throughput. Previous client (one ships with software probably on shelves now) was slow - 10mbps U will have to use the auto update or download the newer client. (note only the client part) To fully test and see if network can be maximized you would - backup over network a very large file from a defragmented client drive - to a defragmented server disk backup volume - on a server with a fast enough CPU that it can calculate the MD5sum for the file faster than network bandwidth can deliver data. If both client and server hard drives were very fast, then network would be the limiting factor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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