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Slow Backup

By ralph_gci ·
Using Arcadia Backup Exec and an HP Dat 8 tape drive, I am backing up data from 4 servers. Each of them has between 1 and 1.5 GigaBytes of data, and takes 20 to 30 minutes - Except one which takes 30 minutes every night for a couple of weeks, thentakes over 5 hours for several days, then goes back to 30 minutes. This pattern keeps repeating. Does anyone have any idea what could cause this, and is there any way to determine if specific files or directories are creating a problem?

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Slow Backup

by Hasse MCSE/Brainbench In reply to Slow Backup

Hi!

I suspect you backup the other servers over the network.

Check the network interfaces if they are set on full or half duplex.

If all are set on detect there might be a problem there when rebooting servers.

Instead set them to half duplex unless you know all network cards and all hubs/switches and routers supports full duplex.

Because when trying to use full duplex on one machine and the other is on half, you might get this kind of trouble.

Takes for ever to copy files overthe network.

This is the first thing I would check.

/Hasse

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Slow Backup

by ralph_gci In reply to Slow Backup

Both the backup server and the server with the problem are at full duplex, plugged into the same switch, but there are other machines on the switch at half duplex. I'll have to check into this some more. Thanks.

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Slow Backup

by Tony Hogan In reply to Slow Backup

This may be an issue with file locking. I've had occurrence very similar to this where there are processes that use the file(s) only on certain dates/times. If the backup software is set to "wait for files" if they are open, you'll get the longer backup times - it effectively has to wait and timeout for every file it encounters that is open. I had this happen with a transfer program that opened a directory of about 1000 small files - it had exclusive access so the backup program waited 30 seconds per file to see if it became available --> and the backup went from minutes to hours.

-tony

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Slow Backup

by ralph_gci In reply to Slow Backup

Haven't found anything like this yet, but there are about 8,000 small files being backed up, many are databases and spreadsheets, so maybe there is a problem here. needs more investigation. Thanks.

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Slow Backup

by dbowlin In reply to Slow Backup

Both answers 1 and 2 are worth more investigation. Another thing to check is what other services, or utilities may be scheduled to run every several days. Virus scans, Defrag, and other utilities can slow things down a great deal. Do you have anylarge queries/reports running against a database overnight, which can occupy system resources. Basically look for other resource hogs running when you have problems.

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Slow Backup

by ralph_gci In reply to Slow Backup

No such other major processes running on that machine at that time. Thanks.

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