Building Snapshot Takes Hours!

[e569cf42-bb19-4b07-b96b-4adb415f45bb]

I'm in the process of trying to migrate from Retrospect 6.1 to version 8 and running into a problem with backups of remote machines taking hours to complete even though a tiny amount of data was actually backed up.

 

In comparison to the backing up the same remote machine with version 6.1, the scanning and backup portion of an incremental backup run about the same speed, so that's not a problem. However, the version 8 process does a "Building Snapshot" phase that takes hours to complete even though only a small amount of data was backed up.

 

Some details:

 

Backup Server:

2010 MacPro 12 core 2.66GHz, 16GB, OS X 10.6.8

Retrospect 8.2.0 (399)

Retrospect 6.1.230

 

Client:

Fedora Core 14 (32bit)

RetroClient: 7.6.100

Approximately 325,000 files scanned for backup

 

The client is located on our WAN at a remote location and network bandwidth is approx. 5GB/s to its location.

 

Timings:

 

Retrospect 6.1:

25.2 MB backed up, 75.8 MB/minute

Duration 00:09:01 (00:08:06 idle/preparing/loading)

 

Retrospect 8:

25.2 MB backed up, 78.2 MB/minute

Duration: 01:49:25 (01:48:59 idle/loading/preparing)

The actual scanning/backup took about 8 minutes. The reset is the "Building Snapshot".

 

 

During the long "Building Snapshot" phase, the Retrospect Client indicates that it is still reserved and using network monitoring tools we are seeing that the connection remains established the entire time (although it looks like very little traffic is actually flowing - roughly 5-10 KB/s).

 

For the backup script:

- verification is off

- data compression in software

- Match source files against the Media Set

- Don't add duplicate files to the Media Set

- Linux: Use status modification date when matching

 

I've tried using both File and Disk type media sets for the destination with no difference.

 

As we have many remote systems to backup, this extremely slow performance is not acceptable. Hopefully someone can offer some suggestions so we can successfully migrate to version 8.

 

Thanks for your help.

[Lennart_T]

Here is another thread about the same problem:

http://forums.support.roxio.com/topic/76652-one-client-is-very-slow/

[e569cf42-bb19-4b07-b96b-4adb415f45bb]

Here is another thread about the same problem:

http://forums.support.roxio.com/topic/76652-one-client-is-very-slow/

 

Okay, that's great. But where is any actual response regarding the problem? I thought this was the official Retrospect forum that the new owners (Roxio) used to provide support for their customers.

 

I don't understand why the server has to stay connected to the client to build the snapshot. The server completes a complete scan of the client before the backup (just like version 6), That should be adequate to build the snapshot (just like version 6). So the connection speed or speed of the client should have absolutely no bearing on the snapshot building speed.

[Lennart_T]

I thought this was the official Retrospect forum that the new owners (Roxio) used to provide support for their customers.

No, this is a user-to-user discussion. We're all volunteers here.

 

Here's the support contact:

http://www.roxio.com/enu/support/retrospect/contact.html