| John Dougrez-Lewis 2004-09-12, 7:45 am |
| I've been evaluating alternatives to the standard Windows 2003 Server EE
NTBackup utility.
I thought I'd post my experiences here, to see if there's anything
obviously wrong that I'm that doing.
Previous feedback from other users indicated that Tapeware had an
unique, attractive facility of allowing backup of multiple HDDs in
parallel to a single Tape device, offering greater utilisation of the
Tape Driver throughput bandwidth.
I would've been inclined to go with Tapeware, but the figures below did
not meet my expectations.
I am particularly intrigued by the high speed verify of NTBackup and
even more the figure achieved by Veritas's verify phase.
DISCLAIMER: The figures below were obtained running on my W2K3EE Server
without any expert tweaking of configuration parameters. The figures may
therefore not indicate a true picture for comparison of what is
achievable on these packages.
My experiences so far are as follows:
My HP Ultrium 460e is rated at 3.6GB/minute.
I have a single 147GB HDD connected to an Adaptec U320 SCSI Host Bus
Adaptor The HP 460e is on it's own dedicated Adaptec U160 SCSI Host Bus
Adaptor
With the MS bundled NTBackup, I get:
550MB/minute backup
1100MB/minute verify (read back compare)
With Veritas Backup Exec with their Open File Manager, I get:
550MB/minute backup
3400MB/minute verify (read back compare)
With Tapeware 7, I get: (estimated figure based on log below)
400MB/minute backup
400MB/minute verify (read back compare)
Running with the Tapeware Open File Manager makes no difference.
Overall, I'm disappointed with Tapeware for the following reasons:
1) As currently configured, it gets nowhere near the performance of the
other 2 backup programs.
2) When backing up with (I presume) Open File Manager enabled, it still
failed to backup a critical Windows Registry file (backup log attached),
which defeats the purpose of doing the backup in the first place.
3) Whilst I'm a technically competent software developer, the Tapeware
UI is not as well integrated as the other backup apps, there is a steep
learning curve and there are references to tweaking ".INI" file settings
which suggests that UI is a relatively thin veneer and that a lot of
"dirty" expert configuration is required to get the best performance.
I'm tempted to go out and getting a 2nd 147GB HDD to add on to the U320
controller to see if the Tapeware throughput does indeed double, but for
the moment, unless there are some quick optimisations that can boost the
Tapeware performance above, I'd be inclined to stick with NTBackup for
time being and then either fiddle around in my spare time with eval
software or else simply wait for the next release.
Regards,
John
Tapeware log from point 2 above:
========================================
=======================================
Job Backup Specific
========================================
=======================================
Summary
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Job Type : Backup Job
Number of Passes : 3
Logging Mode : Failed Objects Only
Backup mode : Full
Change mode : Prompt
Write Mode : Overwrite all Media
Auto Format Mode : Auto Format All Media
Verify Mode : Full Data Verification
Job Start Time : 10-Sep-2004 01:00 PM
Selecting Objects : Start 10-Sep-2004 01:00:53 PM
Selecting Objects : End 10-Sep-2004 01:01:47 PM
Backup First Objects : Start 10-Sep-2004 01:01:47 PM
Backup First Objects : End 10-Sep-2004 01:01:47 PM
Backup Begin Objects : Start 10-Sep-2004 01:01:47 PM
Backup Begin Objects : End 10-Sep-2004 01:01:47 PM
Backup Pass 1 : Start 10-Sep-2004 01:01:47 PM
Backup Pass 1 : End 10-Sep-2004 01:15:56 PM
Backup Pass 2 : Start 10-Sep-2004 01:16:11 PM
Backup Pass 2 : End 10-Sep-2004 01:16:20 PM
Backup Pass 3 : Start 10-Sep-2004 01:16:35 PM
Backup Pass 3 : End 10-Sep-2004 01:16:42 PM
Backup End Objects : Start 10-Sep-2004 01:16:42 PM
Backup End Objects : End 10-Sep-2004 01:20:03 PM
Backup Last Objects : Start 10-Sep-2004 01:20:03 PM
Backup Last Objects : End 10-Sep-2004 01:20:03 PM
Build Object List : Start 10-Sep-2004 01:21:30 PM
Build Object List : End 10-Sep-2004 01:21:39 PM
AutoVer Pass 1 : Start 10-Sep-2004 01:21:39 PM
AutoVer Pass 1 : End 10-Sep-2004 01:35:58 PM
Job End Time : 10-Sep-2004 01:37 PM
Effective Throughput : 3409 Kbytes/Second
: 199 Mbytes/Minute
Selected Objects : 52561
Selected Size : 7466467 Kbytes
Completed Objects : 52555
Completed Size : 7447258 Kbytes
Failed Objects : 6
Failed Size : 19209 Kbytes
Job Completed Successfully
Check Log for any Failed Objects
Details
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Streams : LIGHTBLU2
: Selected Objects : 52556
: Selected Size : 6334116
Kbytes
: Completed Objects : 52553
: Completed Size : 6334116
Kbytes
: Object Warnings : 3
: Object Warnings : 0 Kbytes
: LIGHTBLU2\System State
: Selected Objects : 5
: Selected Size : 1132351
Kbytes
: Completed Objects : 4
: Completed Size : 1113343
Kbytes
: Object Warnings : 1
: Object Warnings : 19008 Kbytes
Media : Home\Admin Folder\Media:1:1
: Completed Objects : 52555
: Completed Size : 7447258
Kbytes
Devices : Dev-2.0.3.0: HP Ultrium 2
: Dev-3.0.3.0: HP Ultrium 2
LIGHTBLU2\System State
Windows Event Log : Bkp : 208 - Object not found
LIGHTBLU2\C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs
HOLUX : Bkp : 208 - Object not found
LIGHTBLU2\C:\Documents and Settings\jdl\Favorites
?????? ?????. ??????????? ????.u : Bkp : 601 - Invalid object path
LIGHTBLU2\C:\Documents and Settings\LIGHTBLU2\ASPNET
NTUSER.DAT : Ver : 101 - Data did not compare
correctly
NTUSER.dat.LOG : Ver : 101 - Data did not compare
correctly
LIGHTBLU2\C:\WINDOWS\system32
???????? : Bkp : 601 - Invalid object path
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