Acronis limitations on backup/restore read/write speeds?

I think you are going to have to check it out for yourself in that it is all rather dependant on the components in your system. If you are using Windows 7 Take a look at the resource monitor and see if anything is maxed out.

On my system at the moment when I backup the system disk it is the disk that is the limiting factor if I do disk to disk transfers if I go across the network then the network potentially becomes the bottleneck. If you have a not so powerful CPU then that could be the issue.

So your question really is how long is a piece of string and the answer is, well it depends...

I think there is more performance to be had from the software but that still depends on your hardware and what you are trying to do as well as how it is configured.

If you are putting a new system together with SATA III disks, a fast CPU, Gigabit Ethernet and have plenty of RAM then it should be fairly quick but as to it maxing out any component - I don't think anyone will be able to answer that with 100% truth (except perhaps Acronis)

RayG wrote:

If you are putting a new system together with SATA III disks, a fast CPU, Gigabit Ethernet and have plenty of RAM then it should be fairly quick but as to it maxing out any component - I don't think anyone will be able to answer that with 100% truth (except perhaps Acronis)

Thanks for your comments. Yeah, that's exactly why I'm asking. My newest build is an ASRock 890FX with Phenom II X6 1100T and 16GB RAM. It is native SATA3 6Gbs/USB3.0 with the main OS disk being an OCZ Solid3 SSD (SATA3) with data and programs on a WD Caviar Black 7200rpm 1TB 64mb cache, also SATA3. I know neither this nor any hardware system will perform even close to marketed speeds, but I want to know if there are any known programmatic limitations that are inherent in Acronis that would cap read/write throughput before hardware I/O limitations (whatever those might be for this build) are reached.

EDIT: Case in point. I just finished installing programs and updating everything on the new build. Acronis just turned out sustained 95-100MB/s backup writes to an eSATA (3Gb/s) Fantom 2TB external storage. Verification reads were sustained 115-125MB/s. The entire uncompressed backup is combined from the SSD OS drive and the WD data drives and totals 177GB with a final archive of 149GB at normal compression. The backup completed in 29 min and the verify finished in 21 min. No complaints there considering that it used to take me SEVERAL HOURS to backup 50GB to a NAS drive. But relative to what the potential is for this particular hardware combo AND based on data transfer rates I've seen in other applications, I have to wonder if Acronis has any caps.

EDIT: I just recalculated the backup/verify speed based on the total data of 177GB divided by the time Acronis reported for the job and I get 59MB/s instead of my "observed" 95-100MB/s. Not sure where the difference is coming in, but I can't argue with the numbers. Assuming my math is correct...

177 GB = 177,000 MB / 3000 seconds (50 min X 60s) = 59MB/s

I realize this is an old post.. but it hits the nail on the head with some of my questions/observations..

System specs *mind you this is for testing purposes, which is why I`m copying a raid 0 array to a raid 0 array..*

Q9550 4x2.83 ghz non HT
8 gig ddr 2 1066 or pc8500
2x 300 gig velociraptors in raid 0 on ICH10R for OS drive containing roughly 480 gig capable of 220mb/s reads
2x 500 gig WD Blue 7200 rpm drives in raid 0 on ICH10R to copy data to, capable of 200mb/s reads
1 120 gig OCZ vertex 2 R2 sata2 ssd.. Max reads roughly 200mb, writes 150. This is where my dedupe database is housed.
ABR 11.5 ADV workstation with deduplication.
Win 7 64

When starting a simple backup with deduplication, backing up the 480 gig on the c: drive, to the other raid 0 array, when the backup first starts, the process is severely limited by the two velociraptors .. The proc is idling along, and the drives show 100% utilization with 1-3 mb of actual data transfer. ? Guessing this is something to do with Acronis prepping/locking the drive for backup. Once that stage is complete, the system is alternately bottlenecked by the c: drive and the processor.. Additional memory use at this point is minimal. Once the backup is completed, and Acronis begins its indexing process, all 4 cores sit at 30-50% useage and disk throughput is 40-90mb, alternating between the velociraptors being backed up, the d: consisting of the destination R0 array, and the ssd containing the dedupe database. Also notable at this stage, memory useage goes up to 6-7 of the 8 gig in the system. Given that I can monitor the cpu, and the hard disks, I am guessing that memory throughput is my bottleneck at this point, because the proc and drives are no where near maxed out.. Now if only DDR2 wasnt so expensive.. Seems more feasible to replace my server with this box, and build me a new workstation.. Anyone have any observations with their system performance with newer specs/raid arrays?