jkennedy15 Posted July 9, 2008 Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 I am using Retrospect for Windows 7.5 to back up multiple Windows servers. I am backing them up to a disk array that is attached to the Retrospect backup server. I also from time to time do backups to a tape drive that is also attached to the same server. I have noticed that the backup to disk jobs are much slower than the backups to tape. To test I took a 10G file on one the servers we back up that takes Retrospect close to an hour to back up, and I copied it directly from Windows explorer to the retrospect backup server disk array....It only took 10 minutes. It seems that Retrospect is "slowing down" the transfer of the data. Any thoughts as to what the problem might be? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkennedy15 Posted July 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 Also - I do NOT have verification turned on in the Retrospect scripts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted July 9, 2008 Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 What exactly does the log show for performance in each case. Including copy and past from the log will help us help you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkennedy15 Posted July 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 This is a log from a server where we backup approx 50G of data to the disk array. AS you can see there are 30 files in this backup. 3 of those files are 10G each. This backup takes 4 hrs. This is the server that I took one of the 10G files and copied it directly to the retrospect server and it took approx 10 minutes If you need any more logs let me know Jeff ------------------------------------------------- + Normal backup using Oracle at 7/8/2008 7:47 AM (Execution unit 1) To Backup Set Shadow_FS6... - 7/8/2008 7:47:00 AM: Copying FS5_Backups on fs6-emperor 7/8/2008 11:48:41 AM: Snapshot stored, 25 KB 7/8/2008 11:48:42 AM: Execution completed successfully Completed: 30 files, 48.9 GB, with 0% compression Performance: 208.1 MB/minute Duration: 04:01:41 (00:01:09 idle/loading/preparing) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted July 9, 2008 Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 One major difference between the copy/paste and Retrospect is you have turned on data compression within Retrospect. I suspect due to the file type you are getting zero % compression. I would turn off compression in your script options and try again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkennedy15 Posted July 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 Thanks - I will give it a try. These were files that were already compressed by an Oracle database backup program, so compression is not needed.......but we also back up Windows file servers with the compression option turned on and we get 40-50% compression. We periodically back these same servers up to tape and in those cases, the tape drive handles the compression. When that is the case the data transfer to the tape drive is still twice as fast as doing the Retrospect backups to disk with compression turned on. Is the Retrospect compression method that much slower than the hardware compression done by the tape drives? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkennedy15 Posted July 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 Here are the logs from the Windows file servers to disk and to tape To Disk......................................... Local Disk (C:) on TheExpanse1 Local Disk (E:) on TheExpanse1 Local Disk (F:) on TheExpanse1 - 7/8/2008 6:30:00 PM: Copying Local Disk (C:) on TheExpanse1 7/8/2008 6:34:58 PM: Snapshot stored, 133.6 MB 7/8/2008 6:35:02 PM: Execution completed successfully Completed: 307 files, 356.3 MB, with 46% compression Performance: 350.3 MB/minute Duration: 00:05:01 (00:03:59 idle/loading/preparing) - 7/8/2008 6:35:04 PM: Copying Local Disk (E:) on TheExpanse1 7/8/2008 6:35:04 PM: No files need to be copied 7/8/2008 6:35:32 PM: Snapshot stored, 9 KB 7/8/2008 6:35:33 PM: Execution completed successfully Duration: 00:00:29 (00:00:24 idle/loading/preparing) - 7/8/2008 6:35:35 PM: Copying Local Disk (F:) on TheExpanse1 File "F:\Users\lynne.lewellen\MailFolders\~Z Drvie Mail Folders.pst.tmp": can't read, error -1101 (file/directory not found) File "F:\Users\ron.nihei\Mail\nihei.pst": can't read, error -1111 (locked range conflict) File "F:\Users\ron.nihei\Mail\nihei1.pst": can't read, error -1111 (locked range conflict) 7/8/2008 10:59:47 PM: Snapshot stored, 110.7 MB 7/8/2008 11:00:00 PM: 2 execution errors Remaining: 3 files, 2.1 GB Completed: 78150 files, 102.5 GB, with 32% compression Performance: 432.7 MB/minute Duration: 04:24:25 (00:21:56 idle/loading/preparing) 7/8/2008 11:00:17 PM: 2 execution errors Total performance: 432.1 MB/minute with 32% compression Total duration: 04:29:59 (00:26:20 idle/loading/preparing) To Tape........................................... + Executing D2D2T-Expanse1-628-08 at 6/28/2008 8:00 AM (Execution unit 1) To Backup Set D2D2T-Expanse1-628-08... - 6/28/2008 8:00:01 AM: Transferring from Disk T 6/29/2008 1:29:55 AM: Execution completed successfully Completed: 480691 files, 987.5 GB Performance: 969.0 MB/minute Duration: 17:29:55 (00:06:26 idle/loading/preparing) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted July 9, 2008 Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 The tape drive uses hardware compression, which turns off software compression. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkennedy15 Posted July 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 I understand.......but evidently the hardware compression is 2x faster than the software compression? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkennedy15 Posted July 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 Also shouldn't backing up to disk be much faster than backing up to tape, even with compression? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted July 9, 2008 Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 I have tape drives that can write at 2000 MB/minute. I don't have any hard disks that can write backup at this speed. Tape is not always slower the disk, sometimes it is faster. With compression off, your disk backups will be much faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkennedy15 Posted July 9, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2008 Thanks for the info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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