Very slow backup with Apple

[20394880-2680-43d5-970a-51ae6a95b4fe]

Hello, 

We're a film production house that has been using retrospect for 15 years. Our network consists of a PC running Retrospect with LTO drives backing up 3 mac workstations. The issue we've been having is backing up the Macs. In the past, we've always had a sustained 4-5GB per minute backup through the network from the Macs. The transfer rate has gone down to anywhere from 200 to 500 MB per minute only on the Macs. We can backup from a networked drive or attached drive at 4-5GB per minute but once we connect a Mac, the speed cuts way down. We just upgraded Retrospect to the latest version, uninstalled the client software on the macs and reinstalled with no change in performance. I can push files through the macs to a NAS with no issue at normal speed. Don't know where to move next. I spoke with tech support at retrospect and they don't know why this would happen. ANy insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

[Lennart_T]

Where are the Mac files stored? On an internal (fast) SSD? Or an external (slow) mechanical drive?

What do you backup? Just the film files? Or all files? Mac OS consists of many thousands of tiny files, which takes (much) longer time than a few large files (if the total amount of bytes is the same).

Have you considered disk-to-disk-to-tape backups?

[MikeHutch]

This sounds more like network bandwidth has been throttled down from your highest to the lowest one available. There are a few reasons why this could happen; a) the Macs are using WiFi, not Ethernet; b) the switcher box or router is using a lower bandwidth setting; c) there is heavy traffic on the network, ie backing up too many computers at once; d) the Mac's network settings are not setup to use their full bandwidth, usually 1000BaseT, and it's not full Duplex.

I'd look into that first, and see if anything is not right. Then move onto other areas that may affect it.