Backup to network share very slow

Upgrading to gigabit networking (1000Mbps) would be a huge improvement. 10Mbps is slower than USB 1.x.

If that's not possible, upgrading to 100Mbps would be about 10 times faster than what you have now.

Thanks MudCrab. I will try that.

Network backup performance is a dog. I -have- a gigabit wired network, and even running a backup task at high priority / maximum network speed takes more than 10 hours to copy a 12 Gb partition. I know it's not a network problem because once the backup finishes I can then copy the .tib file from the network share back down to the machine where the backup ran, using Windows Explorer, in about 43 minutes flat. This is an Acronis issue and nothing else.

Unless you're using a really slow computer on one end (or both ends) of the connection, I would say there is something wrong. Even if the 12GB partition resulted in a 12GB image file, it shouldn't take anywhere near 43 minutes to copy. I usually get 3-4GB/min. on copies like that.

I'm having similar issues transferring data from Windows 7 to Windows Server 2008 R2. Using file copy I have seen 30MB/s - and Acronis is maxing out at 6MB/s. Both are well below the 1Gb/s network capabilities.

What is seriously confusing is that copying from the server TO the client is NOT limited, and 95MB/s is normal (near 100% utilization, about 6GB/minute).

And yes folks, full duplex is set, both computers have fast disks, etc. Talking with Microsoft, there are throttling settings in Windows 7 that come set to prefer multimedia streaming; but none of these appear to affect raw data transfer out of the client.

Knowledgeable Help would be appreciated... not script reading from someone paid $1 an hour to answer phones.

This is only true with very small backups.

With Acronis 2010, the backup process starts fast, then gets very, very slow. I try to do full partition backups of 500GB via GB wired Ethernet, and it is impossible.

You will see the datarate go from what you'd expect to what is intolerable in less than 10 hours.

Acronis: Clearly your software is doing something over the network that probably requires more and more network communication as it goes. I say this because the CPU/Disk load goes to almost nothing when the speed does.

Sorry, but I need software that knows how to backup across a network properly. After years, I'm asking for a refund. I'll try my chances elsewhere.

pat
:(

...and I didn't join today! I've been a member for years! Forum SW fail...

Being sarcastic here: Yes Pat, I do only small backups from my 10TB disk array (my typical backup size is a single user with 750GB of image data). Backups start slow and continue slow. I am also using TIH-PP to handle GPT disks; and I can say with confidence they are not handled very well. But then, even Windows Backup doesn't like drives over 2TB.

the initial post was done by LynCopeland - using a 10 Mbps NIC.
that's sure gonna be a bottleneck - whatever backup software you'd be using!
you should upgrade to gigabit networking at all components: NIC, cables, switch.

another question would be: are you creating the backup via bootable rescue media or from within windows?

Lets do the math for 50GB:

GB 50,000,000,000
Mb/s 10,000,000
MB/s (8b10b) 1,000,000
- assume 8b/10b 10base-T encoding

Seconds 50,000.00
Minutes 833.33
Hours 13.89
-- add a bit more time for TCP/IP and stack overhead... lets say 15 hours.

So it should take 15 hours if the network sees 100% utilization. Since Lyn reports only 15% completion after 14 hours, we can conclude the network is being underutilized: idle a significant 80% of the time!

I back up from a desktop over a gigabit network to a Western Digital MyBook World Edition 1 TB drive connected to my Linksys router. I get a full disk image that results in a 43GB .tib file. To backup and validate takes 90 minutes using both TI 2010 and TI 2011. This computer is custom built with Asus P8H67 motherboard, Intel 2nd gen i5-2500K processor, 8 GB RAM, Windows 7 Professional 64 bit.

I have a second desktop that backups up to the same WD drive. That disc image backup generates a 100 GB .tib file. The total time to backup and validate was 4 hours for the most recent backup according to my log file. 3 hours to back up and 1 hour to validate. This computer also a has a gigabit ethernet card. It's a 6 year old Dell Dimension 8400 with a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz processor 2 GB RAM with Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit.

The WD drive is for sure a bottleneck since I can copy files between computers on the network at least twice as fast as I can copy to or from the WD drive. A "better" NAS drive would probably speed up my backups but I'm okay with the time I achieve right now.

Tim,

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Ethernet is a chatty protocol, and you can only realize a 30%-35% data rate-even when nobody else is using the LAN. I think some calculations here are giving Ethernet (GB or 10BT) a bit too much credit!

pat
:)

P.S. Switched to the free Comodo Backup and it flew, with a consistent data rate throughout the time of backup.

Pat,

If you can only get 35% utilization out of your LAN, then its broken. I see 95% routinely using other tools; and like Lyn, I just can't get anywhere near that with Acronis (peaks between 5% and 10% on a good day).

Part of this is Win7 and its bias towards multimedia, but it would appear Acronis is also not managing the I/O properly, which compounds the problem.

I'm now using the stock Windows tools for backup -- they work, match the utilization I can get manually, and are free (well, included in the WinX license).

Tim

Tim,

I am reaching 100% with ATI 2011 on megabit Ethernet connection. I had to disable the offload of the ipv4 checksum option in the adapters.

It isn't a network issue, per se, I know, but here is an interesting site I just stumbled across that shows the relationship between latency and throughput: Max Ethernet and TCP Throughput

Enlightening.

But the issue/problem with Acronis is that as the backup progresses, there isn't more network traffic. I mean;

1. If Acronis were checking each section of a backup via the network for receipt at destination, it would still provide a consistent data rate, as it is still checking just one at a time.
2. If Acronis were checking everything that was transferred for validity as it went, the datarate would be expected to remain the same, but less payload would make it over as you went.
3. If any kind of calculations/checksums/whatever were being done, then you'd expect to see the sending PC's CPU rise, and probably disk activity.

Are any of these actually happening? Not for me, they weren't. Like I said, going to Comodo Backup was quick, free & painless, and gives me all the benefits of the product Ive paid for for years.

Sorry, Acronis... If you had just NOT messed up, I'd probably still be paying you, and would never have thought to consider Comodo. And that is the saddest way to lose a paying customer.

pat
:)

The problem with the network backup with Acronis was about 2 computers ago for me, but I determined that a gigabit network didn't help that much. And yes, I always start the backup from Windows and even with a card-to-card connection I wasn't impressed. My early tests were done on XP.
So I did the easiest thing possible; I bought nice big hard drives for all of the computers and each computer backs up to a second hard drive. I have become a fan of the Chain2Gen scripts that you can get on this forum and they work fine, except they are a bit intense if you are not used to fiddling with things to get them right. One of the features alerts me via email to a failed backup if one of the computers has a problem. I should get around to testing the Windows 7 backup feature. It can't be any worse than the backup that came with XP.

Anyway this is what has worked for me.

Pat L., grats on getting your's to behave. You are one of the few. All of the offload features, throttling settings, and receive side scaling, and autotuning tweaks later, I can assure you the problem is deeper than MS wants to admit.