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Backing up Macintosh Laptop - slow


slube

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I'm using Retrospect 6.0 on a Windows 2000 server, backing up a number of clients. Most of them are Widows 2000 and Windows NT, and all of them work fine. However, there's also a Macintosh G4 laptop on the system running OS X (running the latest Retrospect client), and every time I try to back it up, it goes incredibly slow, to the point where backing up 1 gig would take 17 hours. I tried backing up a mac desktop with OSx, and there's no problem. As an experiment, I tried backing up another Mac OS X laptop on a different Windows 2000 server running Retrospect 6, and the same speed problems happend - that is, it was going to take hours and hours to backup 300 megs. So the problem seems to be with the Retrospect software. Has anybody experienced this problem with mac laptops, and does anyone have a solution?

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I have Retrospect Professional 6.5 running on my Windows 2000 Professional SP3 system. It backs my Dell 7500 laptop running W2K and my Apple PowerBook G3 running both MacOS 9.2.2 and MacOS X 10.2. I get about 100MB/min when backing up MacOS 9.2.2, but only 3MB/min backing up MacOS 10.2. I am using Retrospect Client 5.1.120 in both verssions of MacOS. The difference in speed is unreal. I gave up trying to back up using MacOS 10.2 using Retrospect so I just boot up MacOS 9.2.2 and back up that way.

 

Is this slow speed because Retrospect Client runs under MacOS 9 Emulation (Classic Environment), or does it run as a native MacOS X app and has some issue that needs to be solved?

 

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Is this slow speed because Retrospect Client runs under MacOS 9 Emulation (Classic Environment), or does it run as a native MacOS X app and has some issue that needs to be solved?

 


 

The OS X Client process (pitond) is native unix code, and the GUI application program is a Cocoa app. Nothing emulated about 'em.

 

I get screaming fast backups of my OS X Clients, so I know it _can_ be done...

 

- What model of PowerBook G3 do you have?

- Confirm the version of the Retrospect Client software you're using? I don't think 5.1.120 is accurate...

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I use to have 5 Macs but am down to 1 now - the PowerBook. I have been backing

up this PowerBook with retrospect since Feb 2000. Slowness wasn't really an issue

until Mac OS X came on the scene.

 

I just updated my Retrospect Server and Clients on all my (3) systems and ran another

backup test.

 


Server Setup

 

Name: BSOD

OS: Windows 2000 Professional, SP3, 5.00.2195

System: ASUS P4S533 Motherboard

CPU: 1.8A GHz Intel Pentium 4

Memory: 512MB (370MB free during test)

Disks: IBM Ultrastar 18GB (SCSI, 10,000RPM)

All disks are formatted as 'NTFS'.

Network: TCP/IP, 100BaseT Full-Duplex into a Bay Networks 350-T

10/100BaseT EtherSwitch.

 

Retrospect Info

 

Retrospect Professional (6.5.319) for Windows

 

Client Setup

 

Name: PowerBook

OS: Mac OS X 10.2.6

Mac OS 9.2.2

System: Apple PowerBook G3 Series

CPU: 400 MHz PowerPC G3 (1MB L2 cache)

Memory: 192MB Memory (32MB free during test)

Disks: IBM Ultrastar 18GB (SCSI, 10,000RPM), 6GB Internal

All disks are formatted as 'Mac OS Extended'.

Network: TCP/IP, 100BaseT Full-Duplex into a Bay Networks 350-T

10/100BaseT EtherSwitch.

 

Retrospect Info for Mac OS X 10.2.6 Environment

 

Name: PowerBook

Type: Macintosh backup client

Version: 5.1.109

Priority: 100%

Security: Password

Status: connected

Connected: 00:03:27

Echo time: 0.00

Speed: 11001 K Bytes/sec (ran several times)

Clock offset: 00:00:00

 

Protocol: TCP/IP

Address Method: Multicast - Piton Name Service

Interface: Default

 

Retrospect Info for Mac OS X 9.2.2 Environment

 

Name: PowerBook

Type: Macintosh backup client

Version: 5.1.157

Priority: 100%

Security: Password

Status: connected

Connected: 00:02:05

Echo time: 0.00

Speed: 2776 K Bytes/sec (ran several times)

Clock offset: 00:00:00

 

Protocol: TCP/IP

Address Method: Multicast - Piton Name Service

Interface: Default

 

The Tests

 

I used one of the IBM Ultrastar SCSI disks on my backup server to hold the

test backup set. To confirm that this test backup set disk would not be a

bottleneck, I did a small test by backing up the C drive on the server:

 

6/25/2003 2:02:07 PM: Copying Drive C (C:)

6/25/2003 2:30:30 PM: Execution stopped by operator

Remaining: 18522 files, 2.8 GB

Completed: 35194 files, 8.1 GB

Performance: 293.7 MB/minute

Duration: 00:28:21 (00:00:19 idle/loading/preparing)

 

I also did a small test backup of my Dell 7500 running Windows 2000

Professional (same version as the BSOD Retrospect Server):

 

6/25/2003 5:52:33 PM: Copying Drive C (C:) on snafu1

6/25/2003 5:52:33 PM: Connected to snafu1

6/25/2003 5:58:29 PM: Execution stopped by operator

Remaining: 80169 files, 8.2 GB

Completed: 3720 files, 741.0 MB

Performance: 127.7 MB/minute

Duration: 00:05:55 (00:00:07 idle/loading/preparing)

 

For test #1, I booted up Mac OS X 10.2.6 and backed up about 730MB

of one of the Powerbook's external SCSI disks (MacOS X Boot):

 

6/25/2003 10:19:04 AM: Copying MacOS X Boot on PowerBook

6/25/2003 10:19:04 AM: Connected to PowerBook

6/25/2003 1:02:57 PM: Execution stopped by operator

Remaining: 120974 files, 2.7 GB

Completed: 41079 files, 729.5 MB

Performance: 4.4 MB/minute

Duration: 02:43:53 (00:00:20 idle/loading/preparing)

 

For test #2, I booted up Mac OS 9.2.2 and backed up about 730MB

of one of the Powerbook's external SCSI disks (MacOS X Boot):

 

6/25/2003 5:06:07 PM: Copying MacOS X Boot on Powerbook

6/25/2003 5:06:07 PM: Connected to Powerbook

6/25/2003 5:21:54 PM: Execution stopped by operator

Remaining: 123620 files, 2.7 GB

Completed: 41106 files, 736.1 MB

Performance: 47.6 MB/minute

Duration: 00:15:47 (00:00:20 idle/loading/preparing)

 

With each test, I recycled the Backup Set so it started fresh each time. It's

important to note that both of the MacOS backup tests were done on the exact

same hardware. The test disk was the same in each case too. The only

difference was the software. The PowerBook CPU was 74% idle with 32MB

of free memory and no pageouts during the test. Notice the speed check

in Mac OS X says 11001 K Bytes/sec, but under Mac OS 9 it's 2776 K Bytes/sec.

Yet the test backup was 10 times slower in Mac OS X.

 

By the way, Retrospect's "kill Outlook, backup and restart" feature doesn't

work on my Windows 2000 systems. Causes Outlook to generate an error about

an invalid memory reference and hangs the backup. When it rains, it pours, eh?

 

Also, it sure would be nice if Retrospect would NOT eject the DVD discs during verfy.

Having parts of your computer stick out from the chassis at random times is not

desirable when you have people and animals walking by that DVD drive all day.

This should be an option in a dialog box.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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