File Level Backups running slow in VCB (VMware)
So... I, like many others, am very unhappy with the backup speed of VCB on a file level backup -and I can't be giving my backup proxy the kind of disk space it needs to do an image level backup of my file server.
My environment:
-VMware 3.0.3 running on 2 hosts
- MSA1510i iSCSI SAN, storing everything for all VMs
-Separate Gig/E network for SAN traffic
I understand from "the google" that this is because it must still do a lot of seeking on the disk(s) for each little file that it downloads at the file level... where it would only have to seek once to the VMDK and start shipping over the file.
When backing up via file level, I see a backup rate of about 700MB / minute. When backing up via image level, it must first of course copy the file over, but then it backs up at about 2900 MB / minute...
What I am instead wondering, is if anyone has any ideas on how I can tweak my I/O rates... I'm using Symantec BE 12, (currently downloading 12.5 trialware to see if that makes a difference).
Would an increased stripe size on the disks on the guests help, or would that be ineffective due to the fact that it'd still have to seek and do a sequential read?
Is there any way that I can compress the VMDK (other than removing the empty space) such that I don't need a 1 TB drive on my proxy just to back up my file server?
Any other ideas?
My environment:
-VMware 3.0.3 running on 2 hosts
- MSA1510i iSCSI SAN, storing everything for all VMs
-Separate Gig/E network for SAN traffic
I understand from "the google" that this is because it must still do a lot of seeking on the disk(s) for each little file that it downloads at the file level... where it would only have to seek once to the VMDK and start shipping over the file.
When backing up via file level, I see a backup rate of about 700MB / minute. When backing up via image level, it must first of course copy the file over, but then it backs up at about 2900 MB / minute...
What I am instead wondering, is if anyone has any ideas on how I can tweak my I/O rates... I'm using Symantec BE 12, (currently downloading 12.5 trialware to see if that makes a difference).
Would an increased stripe size on the disks on the guests help, or would that be ineffective due to the fact that it'd still have to seek and do a sequential read?
Is there any way that I can compress the VMDK (other than removing the empty space) such that I don't need a 1 TB drive on my proxy just to back up my file server?
Any other ideas?
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You could potentially look at vRanger, I believe it will do a full image backup, compress it on the fly as it writes to disk and then in future do differential backups to save space. They also have the option of a file-agent to pull individual files from the backup without restoring the whole thing.
I can't speak to it's data throughput rate other than when I've used it in the past I haven't been unhappy with the speed.