slow backup

[parthis]

Please Help!!

 

I use a silver mac g4 as the retrospect server to backup a few (about 8 macs) macs over tcp-ip network. The backup is extremely slow (1.2-2.1 mb/min). I start my backup around 5:30 pm to run overnight, when I com back in the office the next morning the backup still going on. In fact, it takes the rest of the day to finish. I would like to know if there's anything at all I could do to speed it up.

 

By-the-way, I am backing up to an external drive (usb 1.0 connection)

 

 

 

Thank you

[AmyJ]

You indicated that you are backing up to an external USB drive - what kind? Hard drive, CD burner, tape drive? If not a hard drive, while in Retrospect go to Configure > Devices > Device Status and list Vendor, Product and Version for your drive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[parthis]

Thanks for you reply AmyC

 

 

 

The drive I am backing up to is an external hard drive (lacie limited)

[AmyJ]

The key is to find the bottleneck.

 

 

 

Does the slow speed happen only on the network clients or also the local machine? If only on the client machines, the bottleneck is mostly likely out on the network. Try a crossover cable between the server and a client. If speeds increase, troubleshoot your network.

 

 

 

If the slow speeds happen when backing up any source, the bottleneck could be with the communication between the computer and the destination drive. If this is the case, as a test, try a backup to the local hard drive - do you see speed increases? If so, troubleshoot your external drive - cable, disk utility, etc.