Freezing up network connection

[ctworion]

Using Retrospect 6.1.126

Server is Mac OS X 10.3.9

Clients: Windows XP, OS X 10.3 and 10.4

Backing up to WD MyBook 500GB

 

Right about the time I started having trouble with a couple drives, and Retrospect was telling me they had dirty heads, I started experiencing another issue. Suddenly and without any obvious reason, the entire network would go down with little to no internet connectivity. What fixed it? Well, we share internet with another company on our floor. Meaning the connection comes into the building and into their system, and then branches off to a router, which then branches out to all of our computers, including the computer that is acting as a backup server for Retrospect. Well, the other company unplugged our router, and the connection was instantly restored, so the problem is on our side.

 

Then we narrowed it down to the backup server. Simply turning off that computer entirely instantly restored the connection. This has happened several times now, and each time it happened the computer had encountered a problem with one of the bad drives and was sitting for quite awhile, sometimes over night, waiting for a new drive. I got two new drives and it's been working for a little over a week just fine, until the day after thanksgiving, and then again this morning.

 

What I'm getting at, is it possible that something is happening in Retrospect that could actually bring the network to a halt, or is most likely something wrong with the computer or cables and some sort of packet loss? I feel ridiculous asking this question because I would not normally try to blame the software, but I just can't see anything wrong anywhere else. Regardless, I need to get this cleared up so my boss can stop getting upset with me.

 

Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

[pbausch]

Are any of your clients on your side plugged into an ethernet hub? We had problems with our network slowing down terribly on backups until we switched out all of our ethernet hubs with ethernet switches. All of our problems went away. We are set up the same way you are. The company next door has the ethernet connection coming in and into a router then going to our side of the building. We are then daisy chained to 2 different hubs (now switches). Hope this helps.

[ctworion]

Thanks for your response.

 

In our office we have four 5-port switches (2 Netgear, 2 Linksys) but no hubs. And I don't think there's a problem with the switch that the backup server is going into, because every time the problem pops up, turning that computer off immediately fixes it, and there are other computer going into that switch.

 

Any other ideas?