backups (Full Version)

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gatorgrads -> backups (28.Jan.2008 5:13:40 PM)

I hae a dilema.  My exchange backups ( online) are taking about 6 hrs to complete using NTBackup  They are working great and I can restore without any problems.  The issue I have is the time it takes.   It is about 140gigs for all 4 stores + 1 public folder store.

AMD 2Opteron Processor 252
2.61 GHZ with 12.8 GB of RAM.





uemurad -> RE: backups (28.Jan.2008 6:05:18 PM)

Things that affect the speed of your backups:

Backup media type
Backup type (Information Store, file-level, or mailboxes)?
Verifying the backups
Speed of network ports (if backup server is separate from Exchange server)
Software and/or maintenance routines running at the time of the backup



paresh_md -> RE: backups (29.Jan.2008 4:42:17 AM)

Hi,

What type of backup are you running daily? i.e. Full, Incremental, Diffrential? Taking Incremental backups from Mon-Thu and Full backup on Friday is usual scenario.

PD



gatorgrads -> RE: backups (29.Jan.2008 8:21:40 AM)

I run a full backup everyday. 
We backup directly to SAN not to take.  We are on gig links.  No other maintenance is running on the exchange server during this time.  It just seems to take a very very long time to backup 140 gigs.  Other app's and databases do not take this long to backup just exchange.


Any ideas?



a.grogan -> RE: backups (29.Jan.2008 2:32:12 PM)

Hiya Gator, do you backup to SAN via the LAN (Copper) or via Fibre?
Have you tried (just as a test and if you have the space) performing a full online backup locally to the Exchange server to compare?

From my experience backing up Exchange over a (Copper) LAN link is usually a long process.

Cheers

A



jmayhue -> RE: backups (5.Feb.2008 12:16:36 PM)

Andy,
I apologize if replying here isn't the right way to go but I too have an backup issue with exchange 2003.

Previously we had our exchange running on a P4 1gig PC and backing up (incremental) a 40gig store using NT backup and xmerge that took a few (3-4 hrs). Good right ?

Now we have a RAID 5 server class machine with 4 gigs of ram and the same number of users etc and the time takes 9 hrs! which brings OWA to a  crawl in the early am..any ideas on how to make the back up faster?

I can give more details specs just let me know what you need!!!  Thanks. Jack



Greenwichkid -> RE: backups (5.Feb.2008 12:27:44 PM)

Hi there, 23 Gb/hour isn't that bad, as previously said especially over copper.. Your limit is the network connectivity not your back up program or disk speed. If you want to look for problems, look on the network, switch's etc if you really want to test it chuck a large file across the link and time it, if the speed is way faster than 23gb/hour then I was wrong and your bottle neck was on the machine :-) But I suspect it will be elsewhere.



jmayhue -> RE: backups (5.Feb.2008 2:19:35 PM)

Thanks for the reply but 40 gig in 9 hrs is about 4 gig an hr there has to be a better faster way?



Greenwichkid -> RE: backups (6.Feb.2008 6:10:01 AM)

HI there I read that as 140 Gb in 6 hours, your right 40 Gb in 9 is way different.
Have you tried a test file? i.e a large file and sent it to the same destination? I would also do this test at the same time as when yoru back up is supposed to be on, test for network problems as well.

Also have you checked the backup log to see how long each part is taking. The log should say how long each individual component is taking. if there is some strangeness you may see that there.

If you're sure there are no network issues (I know I keep banging on about this) then look at Disks etc and think about running perfmon do counters on Disk, Mem, CPU and Network...



Greenwichkid -> RE: backups (6.Feb.2008 6:18:26 AM)

Doh confusion all round, ok jmayhue you don't say where you are backing up to now, are you backing up to tape disk what? But advice above still stands however let us know what you are backing up too. If speed is an issue then Back up to Hard drive it's way the fastest method, 40 Gb way under an hour to disk, if you want offsite then just schedule a back up of "the back up to file" to a tape at a later time and take that away.

Also if you are using Exchnage 2003 I'm assuming you are on Win 2003? If so have you also considered setting up VSS?



jmayhue -> RE: backups (8.Feb.2008 10:18:08 AM)

Hey guys,
My apologies.. the backup is being done local. No network involved using nt backup VSS, exmerg. Was four hours now is nine.  The logs show the store taking the longest. I am thinking ( I can totally be wrong :) if I use something other than NT backup it will be faster something like Acronis or Ghost but can really afford 1-5,000, do ya'll (<-southern slang) know an opensource alternative that will do a better job performance wise and doesn't take a masters in complex setup to configure and deploy??? Thanks alot, have a great day!   Jack



a.grogan -> RE: backups (11.Feb.2008 1:32:59 PM)

Hiya Jack, just so I can get back on track (sorry for the delay) - previously you had a P4 workstation with 1GB and performed Inc backups to Disk of Exchange.

You have upgraded to a system with RAID 5 and still backup to disk?

One of the things that I would begin to point to is that it takes longer to write to RAID 5 than a single disk. Also if you are performing online backups of a store to disk that exists on the same LUN as the database then you will run into contention. Are you also still using Incremental?

Cheers

A



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