1/9 Autoloader Backup Throughput

[Brad Peter]

I am using ARCserve 2000 with an HP 1/9 Autoloader (Ultrium) and an Adaptec AHA-2940U2W SCSI adapter. Previously we had this system running on Windows NT 4.0 with all drives on hardware RAID 5. We were getting an average throughput of about 900 MB/min. Now we have installed Windows 2000 (freshly) on mirrored drives, with the rest of the system still on RAID 5. All of the rest of the hardware is the same. Now we are getting an average of 500-600 MB/ min. Any ideas on what might have caused this slowdown? Thanks in advance!

[CA751078]

Hi,
if your autoloader is an HVD drive this link can solve your problem:
http://ask.adaptec.com/cgi-bin/adaptec_tic.cfg/php/enduser/home.php
Reference # 990824-000002

If you have and LVD Drive, you have to change the scsi board with an Ultra160.

Bye

[CA777699]

Brad,
The performance difference you are seeing could be many things. Changing to an Ultra160 card shouldn't change anything, I don't think your bottleneck is in the tape datapath. When you were running NT, what drive were you booting from, and now on 2k, what drive are you booting from? Where is your backup application installed, on the system disk, or the RAID? Is it the same hardware RAID you had on NT? I think the issue is related to your disk setup. It sounds like you've replaced the OS and the system disk(s), and the new setup is not as efficient. Even backing up the same data from the same hardware RAID device, if the application and OS are on a slower disk system than before, your performance will drop. Which brings up another point, are you comparing backup speeds of the system, or just the RAID device, and is the data the same as before?

-Barry Reider