Common causes of slow backups? (10-20 hours on a desktop machine)

All I will say here is mostly not Acronis-specific. I'd start with running a test backup to the same local disk or an external USB disk, that will at least help to eliminate the version of network bottleneck. What about just copying large amount of files or large files over the network? Dying hard disk or the one with faulty cable may inhibit performance too, and not to the point that it becomes annoying during regular usage.

I am experiencing similar issues on my network. I am using Acronis Backup and Recovery 11 on several machines, running Windows XP, Windows 7-32bit and Windows 7-64bit. I am backing up to a large shared drive on a Windows 7-64 bit machine over a gigabit corporate network on the same subnet. The Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit) computers have no trouble backing up within a reasonable time (1-3hours). On the other hand, every one of the Windows XP (sp3) computers seem to be limited in bandwidth to 9mbps (0.9% network utilization) and the backup times take 12-24hrs. I have 4 XP computers that all perform exactly like this. All computers, whether XP or 7 are on the same network. Our corporate networking folks say that there is no bandwidth limitation on the network, other than limitations due to current network traffic, which would affect all computers alike. On the XP computers, I have tried tweaking TCP parameters to optimize bandwidth, but have not succeeded in making any improvements. I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to track down the cause of this slow performance, and have exhausted all possibilities that I can find through internet searches. In my case, since backups take so long, it is not practical to use the backup software from Windows XP computers. Any advice woulde be appreciated.

I am experiencing a very similar problem as Tony, but with True Image Home.

Backup to a networked share on a SAN. Slightly aged Windows XP Boxes (SP3) just work fine, utilising the gbit connection as good as the IDE drives manage to spew out the data.
New Dell Laptop with two SATA drives in a Raid1 configuration and win7(64) tops out at 10-15% network utilisation. Network is unlimited and mostly idle. If files are copied by hand (by windows explorer for example) from one of the source disks to the share, its as fast as it should be (and can be, at ~95% utilisation on the gbit link). If Acronis is told to write to that backup share or ftp, its just a bit more than a tenth of what was possible with the boot cd version.

Tried backup to another share and by ftp instead of shares, all with the same sad outcome.
However, found out that if i run the Acronis backup from the recovery cd i created, its fast too.

So the acronis running from the cd without booting windows first is fast, while the one installed in windows isnt. I kind of want to rule out driver issues, since copying files by explorer is still as fast as it should be.
Windows ressource monitor shows disk IO to be a 100% utilisation when the Acronis backup on windows is running. Tweaking settings like "sector by sector" (deactivated), or compression (none) only made it worse. Network limitation isnt checked in the options, and there shouldnt be anything else limiting disk IO. Even tweaking around in the windows options for the storage controller (caching etc.) didnt really change anything.

Any ideas?

I have not done much with the Home product so can’t comment on that, but with ABR10/11 I’ve spent a fair bit of time with and know it well.

What I would suggest is testing your network transfer speeds from the system running slowly.. Try to transfer files from those systems to the same destination device (NAS unit for example). See what speeds you get, if they are slow as well you have found your issue and needs to address it accordingly. (Remember let the file transfer run for at least a few min to ensure it’s not buffers giving a false speed reading, and select to copy folders with a range of file sizes, don’t copy just one large file, it could be antivirus software as well so try disabling it to see if it helps)

If you find file transfer speeds are good try to check your backup job are you running an image or file level backup? (Generally image is always faster so try to stick to image based backups). When you run your backup check the CPU and RAM usage on the system, you might find with older systems your CPU is at 100% due to compression being applied and causing speed issues with your backups, reduce the compression or disable it if needed.

Also when performing your testing try to have no other backups running from other servers and ensure the destination is capable of receiving the data and CPU load on your destination is not causing any issues (eg, if you are running a managed vault ensure the backup server is of high enough specs to cope with the task being assigned to it).

I’m sure this is not the case as other systems are running fine but also make sure the systems with speed issues are not going to a deduplicated vault as this could be the reason for the speed issues which means you need to check the backup server/storage node side of things.

Check for any device driver and BIOS updated for your OS as at times these can cause speed issues that are not generally noticeable during general day to day use but when pushing the system to perform better you will notice speed or stability issues can start to occurred.

As well as device drivers also always ensure you are running the latest builds/service packs of your OS and backup software.

Good luck with it and hope some of the above checks help you find the cause of the issue.

Network transfer speeds are not the limit, also the recieving storage isnt. We have multiple other Workstations that backup to that very same thing automatically, without speed problems, and from the windows installed service. So its most likely not the hardware at fault.

As stated, the very same hardware with the very same backup settings (image, no compression, not sector by sector) is running fine if acronis is started from the rescue CD. If the one installed in Windows is used, its slow.
And its not really windows drivers for hard disks or network that are the reason behind that, because copying files from that workstation to the very same storage using windows explorer or an ftp client (tried both ways for transfering the data, both suck in windows, fly like a charm from rescue CD) is running fine as well. Drivers are the most current ones the manufacturers supply.

We came to the solution to ditch the installed version on that workstation since there since its not even useable with those speeds and limitations taking multiple hours for a backup. Reverted to manual backups by shutting down the workstation, throwing in the rescue cd, starting acronis from that cd, and running the entire job in less than 30 minutes. Which was the intended timeframe during one of the breaks.

There must be some other bottleneck somewhere.

Hi Dennis, thanks for the update, but unfortunately as mentioned above I don’t do allot with True Image Home product so perhaps someone else could help you with this better. With the ABR (Backup and Recovery) range of products I believe the troubleshooting tips above could help solve/identify the issues for both Tony and Anon above.

However the issue you have reported and testing done I do agree with you it sounds like a software/driver issue of some kind (but again hard for me to commend not know the True Image product well enough). I would strongly suggest posting your questions/findings in the True Image Home section of the forum as well as logging a support case with Acronis who can help you diagnose the issue... Also please ensure you have the latest build/version of True Image installed as if it’s a software issues I’m sure others and Acronis would have found it and would have either already fixed it in the latest build or if recently found it will be fixed in an upcoming build but best checking this with Acronis support direct.

All the best and hope you manage to find the cause shortly.