Speeding up backups to RDX cartridges

RichIbizaSport

RichIbizaSport

RichIbizaSport

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Hey guys,

A few questions I need help with :)

We're doing a full backup everyday of around 230GB-290GB. The majority of this is taken up by a 180GB .bak file + a few other fairly large .baks and a large collection of small files and folders.

Currently the backup server (connect to the tape/RDX) is a Dell PE 1850 (dual core 3.0 xeon + 4GB) and the source (where the.baks are stored) is a Dell PowerVault 220s with a bunch of 10k drives connected via SCSI to a PE 2850 (2 x dual core + 12GB). All the machines have 2 x 10k drives in for the OS
(the servers are getting upgraded in ~6months)

All servers are connected with 1gb connections.

We were running a Exabyte Storage Loader VXA-320, unfortunately our main unit and our backup unit have now failed :( we were due an upgrade anyway!

We've just bought and "installed" a Tandberg RDX QuickStor USB3.0 External caddy and 10 x 500GB cartridges. Our server only has USB 2.0 ports.

Unfortunately we're having some speed issues.

The old tape loader was doing around 510MB/min, totalling around 9-10 hours

We tested a normal Iomega 1TB USB 2.0 external hard drive which did 256GB in a shade under 7 hours at 622MB/min

The last two nights we've run the RDX it's been going at 300MB/min taking pretty much 15 hours :eek:

We're using Arcserve Backup R16 and running with no compression.

As test I've been running a backup during the day with compression enabled and so far we're getting ~460MB/min.

Summary:
Tape: 510MB/Min
USB 2.0 drive: 620MB/min
RDX no compression: 300MB/min
RDX compression: 460MB/min (currently 180GB into 40GB)

Any options to speed this up? I assume the RDX cartridges are 5400rpm. Will switching the internal disks to 7200rpm drives help matters? Possibly switch them to SSD's?

Add in a pci-e usb 3.0 card?

Our DB admin deals with compression on the .bak files, will this be an area where things can be speeded up?

Any idea's where the bottleneck will be?
 
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Clearly if you make the data set smaller, the job should complete more quickly. Equally, if you speed up the interface it should also complete more quickly.

I think those Exabyte units are either Firewire or much more commonly SCSI based so USB2 is never going to get the job done.

I'd either push for a like-for-like replacement of the Exabyte or get a USB3 card in there - your options seem pretty straighforward really.

Figuring out the bottleneck would be complex without knowing how comressible the BAK files are. Pretty much impossible to say.
 
The Exabyte is SCSI based, should be around 5 years old now. I think it's time it was left for dead, I couldn't find any store which stocked more than 1 cleaning tape (£30 a pop).

I've just added info above for the compression. The current on going backup has processed 180GB is taking 40GB of space on the RDX.

It may look like a USB interface is needed.

*Edit*

Actually it looks like a USB 3.0 card is out the window. The PE1850 is PCI-X and not PCI-E, chances of finding a PCI-X USB 3.0 card are looking slimmer by the minute :(

*Edit 2*
We're running sql2000 dbs, lol no compression. *facepalm*. May be able to force through the update of our backup server asap so I can get USB 3.0 in there.
 
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Could you not pre-stage the backup to another box with a decent size hard disk and a PCI-E slot? This would let you then move it to a USB disk drive to take away?

Not ideal but should provide faster throughput. I back up around 250Gb of shared file data per night and get around 700Mb per min (6-7 hours including verify) across the network cards to the disk stores on an external server.

We do an SQL database backup of 98Gb every 8 hours (Shift change) and this only takes about 45 minutes including the verify at a rate of 3200Mb per min (Gotta love single files of large sizes). This is running BackupExec 11D however so unsure what options you have on your software.
 
If you really want USB3.0 you could get PCI-X to x4 PCI-E slot adapter such as the StartTech PCIX1PEX4.

They also do a PCI USB3.0 card PCIUSB3S2. It's obviously speed limited by the PCI interface, but it's still twice as fast as USB2.0.
 
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ShadowMan said:
Could you not pre-stage the backup to another box with a decent size hard disk and a PCI-E slot? This would let you then move it to a USB disk drive to take away?

Not ideal but should provide faster throughput. I back up around 250Gb of shared file data per night and get around 700Mb per min (6-7 hours including verify) across the network cards to the disk stores on an external server.

We do an SQL database backup of 98Gb every 8 hours (Shift change) and this only takes about 45 minutes including the verify at a rate of 3200Mb per min (Gotta love single files of large sizes). This is running BackupExec 11D however so unsure what options you have on your software.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately all the servers for this client are the same PE 1850's in our local datacenter. So no other machines with pci-e :(

The 3200mb/min, is that taking a backup directly from the SQL database? I assume that's local disk to local disk? We leave the actual backing up of the SQL DB to the DB admin - this goes from the live DB to another drive on our SQL cluster, we're taking a backup of the backup to offsite storage.


bremen1874 said:
If you really want USB3.0 you could get PCI-X to x4 PCI-E slot adapter such as the StartTech PCIX1PEX4.

They also do a PCI USB3.0 card PCIUSB3S2. It's obviously speed limited by the PCI interface, but it's still twice as fast as USB2.0.
Click to expand...

Ahhh very interesting! I had no idea there was such a thing as PCI-X to PCI-E converters. I'll give these a look in to . Thanks :D
 
The 3200Mb/min is the transfer of the SQL backup file on disk-to-disk over the network.

The database runs a scheduled backup to generate the .bak file every 8 hours and is configured and monitored by our DBA. We then use BackupExec to grab the file and pull it across to the remote backup server. We leave the file in original location too providing 2 copies of the backup file and the live database in the event of a fault.

Do you not have access to any other machine which could host the PCI-E card? Does not have to be a great server if its just a staging area for a file? I have used desktops with Intel NIC's and a cheap RAID controller before for similar things.
 
Nope, we have 13 x PE1850's and 2 x PE2850's - none have a pic-e slot's. These servers are all for a single client, we have no other servers in that datacenter. So we're pretty much stuffed. The client will in no way splash out in hosting costs to get another server in there.

As I say, every server is getting refreshed on to new hardware and software so I assume this to be a temporary problem. All the servers have been bought by the client already, just sat in storage while the higher ups mess about :(

Backup completed last night with Arcserve compression set on and it took 8 hours 40 at 480mb/min. Not too bad I suppose. Not a world of difference to the tape drive's 520mb/min. May give that PCIUSB3S2 a try at £50.

Not the end of the world now it's finishing before the heavy work starts at 9AM.

Thanks all for the input, greatly appreciated
 
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