Here is a difficult one:
I have a 3Com 3824 (24-port) gigabit switch. Seven of my nine Windows 2000 servers along with our developer’s workstations are all plugged into it.
My issue is that backup jobs fail over the switch and/or never reach full speed. I am backing up to a Dell Powervault 725N that has dual Broadcom NICs.
My backup software is BackupExec 8.6 and I am using the Backup to Disk feature, which simply allows you to use shared folders on a server as backup devices. Here is an example of what exactly happens:
Server A = data source to be backed up
Server B = the backup server
Server C = the NAS box
I start a backup job from Server B and it starts out ok. After an unspecified amount of time the CPU on Server B server jumps up to 50 or 60%. It calms down in a minute or two. Next the CPU on the NAS (Server C) jumps up to about 60%.
Soon after that, the NAS becomes inaccessible over the network (using UNC) and the backup rate starts to drop. The backup job does not always fail at the same place, time, or amount of data.
We have replaced the CPU, RAM, motherboard on the NAS. We have replaced the switch. This has been an ongoing problem for me since Thanksgiving. I have updated NIC drivers, rebooted servers, etc, etc. I believe I may be missing something very fundamental. Everything has SP4 on it.
I have tested with CA’s ARCServe and get similar results. I can almost assume the issue is with switching or NICs, or a setting on the NAS for MS Networking. Not sure
If I move the NAS to a 100MB/Sec switch and leave all the servers on gigabit, the backups run just fine. I simply cannot get the backup running when all the servers are on the gigabit switch. This was working before Thanksgiving but will not work now. There were no changes at Thanksgiving except for an extended power outage.
Why would backups be SLOWER with all the servers on the same switch?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions or help.