ML350 G4p+Ultrium 960 - horribly slow backups

[David B Walsh]

Hi,

We have an ML350 G4p with the following spec:

Dual 3GHz CPU
2GB RAM
5 x 140GB 15K SAS hard disks RAID5
P600 controller 256MB cache 50/50 read/write
Ultra SCSI Ultrium 960 tape drive
Small Business Server 2003 R2 Premium
Backup Exec 10d

Currently backing up approx 80GB data is taking 9.5 hours!!! I think this should actually be taking about 30 minutes.

I have updated Backup Exec to the latest service pack and I am using that latest Symantec drivers for the Ultrium tape drive.

Any clues what to do next?

Thanks.

[James ~ Happy Dude]

Hello David,

Are the Firmwares for the Drive as well as the server updated ?

You have not mentioned an U320 Adapter for the Tape. Use one !!!! (where is it connected now ?)

James.

[David B Walsh]

Hi,

I am downloading the latest proliant support pack and online BIOS software to the server at the moment. Will have to check the firware of the drive separately.

The tape drive is an external unit and is connected to an U320 SCSI card on this server.

Thanks.

[James ~ Happy Dude]

Sure,
Let us know how the update goes !

Cheers !

[Andrew Young_2]

Hi David.

What is the nature of the data?

In our experience if your data is made up of a large number of small data objects there are delays in writing to the tape resulting in a shoeshining effect where you get tape overuns resulting in the tape needing to be rewound before continuing the write, although 9.5 hours is slow for 80GB's. Sometimes a smaller slower tape drive will increase performance. The reason for the slowness is that seek time is increased because the slow file reading due to a large number of reads to the FAT. This seems perculiar to NTFS.

How is the tape drive connected to the server? What controller?

Also is your virus protection perhaps scanning each file as it is being read and backed up? This will delay things even more.

HTH

Andrew Y

[KarloChacon · Accepted solution]

just david


just in case apply firmware CD

http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/27783.html

and after that

PSP 7.9

http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/27534.html

I had similar issue and installing those the error was gone
I hope the same for you

regards

[Colin_29]

I think it is more likely to be BE. Can we rule this out by doing an NT backup to see how quick that is?

Are you using AOFO as this will slow things down considerably?

Have you tried selected parts of the backup? Just a few folders.

Does the backup log give any clues. Is it slow for some parts and not others?

Is it just this server that you are backing up or others on the network as well?

[David B Walsh]

Many thanks to all who tried to help with this.
The 7.90 firmware maintenance CD and the latest proliant support pack sorted this out. Backup operations are now running approx 10 times quicker than before, which is a bit more like it. I would have liked to have identified exactly where the problem was (just for my own interest), but I suppose the "carpet bomb" method of updating all firware and drivers in one go precludes this.
Oh well, at least it's working!!