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incesupportFlag for United States of America

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Backup of local windows files through NDMP (NetApp) attached

I have a NetApp 2040 attached via fibre to a small tape library.
I used BackupExec with the ndmp option license to coordinate the backup of volumes which works really well exceeding 1GB/min.

In addition to this, I have been asked to incorporate the backup of some locally attached disks on our windows servers (i.e. not LUNs) which I am able to add to our backup plans.  When I try to backup via this method, I get a maximum throughput of about 12MB/min which is way too slow.  I understand this may be a bit slower because the way I understand it is that in a pure NDMP backup, all data stays within the NetApp <> Tape library fibre connection whereas the windows disks go via the BackupExec server through the LAN to the NetApps then onto the tapes.

Am I missing something here?  Is this a configuration issue or have I misunderstood what is possible with this setup?

Help appreciated!
Avatar of driskollt
driskollt

How many files are being backed up when you see 12mb/min?  That is pretty ridiculously slow.
Are you seeing 12MB/min to tape or to the NetApp?

I'm not familiar with the Backup Exec terminology (been a few years), but do you have the NetApp configured as a backup target in the BE application?

Are these backups a 2 step process?  
1.  Send backups to a file share on the NetApp
2.  Copy the data to tape through NDMP once the OS backups to the NetApp share are complete.

Also small files don't back up very quickly - The C:\ is usually loaded with them.  You might want to delete unneeded local profiles and limit the I.E. and temp cache settings. 12mb/min is really slow though so it's probably something else.


One thing that can make backups run really slow - A/V software.  You might want to check with Symantec to see what exclusions they recommend (if any).
Avatar of incesupport

ASKER

For my testing, I was backing up some big (half gig) files just to prove that it wasn't struggling to ennumerate millions of silly little files.  These files are local to the BackupExec server for the sake of testing.

The BackupExec server is on the same LAN (Gigabit attached with no obvious signs of network congestion) as the NetApp file and the filer is attached to the tape drive via fibre  - the NetApp will present itself as an NDMP server which can be attached to BackupExec via the 'Add NDMP storage...' menu under 'Configure Devices'.

In this case, Antivirus has been uninstalled from all servers involved.
Avatar of Paul Solovyovsky
that's correct.  Typically CIFS and NFS get around 4GB-6GB/min depeding on tape drive over the network backups, FC shoudl be faster.  
4-6GB/min would be dreamland.  My current transfer rate is 14-16MB/min.
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driskollt

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