Tape Backup

[Gbenu]

What can i do to reduce Full system Backup time

[Christopher McCray_1 · Accepted solution]

The only thing I know of is a hardware upgrade, like if you're using dds, get DLT. Sorry, but tapes are always going to take forever.

[gareth douglas]

Use fbackup to write the backup to tape instead of tar. It's a lot faster when writing to tape.
Gar

[Stefan Farrelly]

In order to help you reduce your backup times we need to know some more information;

1. What kind of tape device are you using ? (eg. DDS2/DDS3 or DLT4000 or DLT7000 etc.)

2. What backup program do you use ?

For example, if youre using fbackup just adjusting the backup config file can speed up the backup time;

blocksperrecord 128
records 32
checkpointfreq 256
readerprocesses 4
maxretries 1
retrylimit 0
maxvoluses 500

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Hi:

Another way to deal with the issue is to change the question to "How can I change my backups so that I don't care how long they take - as long as my users can continue to work?".

The answers are: 1) Under Mirror/UX split off mirrors and backup the mirrors 2) Using OnlineJFS create snapshot mounts and backup the snapshots.

I actually use the snapshot mount method most often. Once the snapshots are made (which generally take a few seconds), your applications can be restarted and then you can backup at your convenience.

The other method is to simply throw as much hardware at the problem and divide your backups across multiple devices. Note than none of these methods are as good as changing the question.

Regards, Clay