Greetings,

I currently have a Win2K file server which contains:

(2) 80GB 7200/EIDE RAID 1 Mirror  (Total working data 80GB)

I'm thinking of building a new box for the file server which contains:

(1) GB Ethernet
(6) 74GB 10,000/SATA RAID 1 Mirror (Total working data 222GB)

I'm also building a target backup server for this new file server
which will contain 1 tape drive and the following to perform disk to
disk backup:

(1) GB Ethernet
(4) 250GB 7200/SATA RAID 1 Mirror  (Total Backup Capacity 500GB)

I'm trying to build a file server/backup system that would be able to
handle
multiple streams of data to allow for the fastest backup. There are
many
small files to be backed up. My personal preference is RAID 1. Since
none of my file server partitions are larger then 74GB I'm not worried
that a backup will be larger then any of my backup server partitions.

My question is, how do I build theses systems to get the fastest
backup possible? Should I install multiple GB nics? Is there an array
controller that is specifically designed to handle mutliple streams of
data? I'm aware that the Disk I/O is usually the cause of the
bottleneck during backup. Will moving both server and backup system to
RAID 5 significantly increase speeds of backup? Can someone make some
recommendations in terms of hardware/software.
I'm aware that the OS can also increase file system overhead so I'm
electing
to try out Veritas Backup Exec (although quite frankly I've always
been a fan
of Xcopy).

My current tests show me that I copy approximately 1.09GB of data in
approximately 4:18 seconds with Backup Exec/verify on over a Gigabit
connection to 7200 IDE drive. Backup Exec says that is a transfer rate
of 435MB/second. Is there away to increase the speed of this to say
1000MB/sec?
Thanks in advanced for sharing any advice or experience you may have!

Michelle

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On 2 Sep 2004 07:35:18 -0700, precisionweb@yahoo.com (Michelle) wrote:

>Greetings,
>
>I currently have a Win2K file server which contains:
>
>(2) 80GB 7200/EIDE RAID 1 Mirror  (Total working data 80GB)
>
>I'm thinking of building a new box for the file server which contains:
>
>(1) GB Ethernet
>(6) 74GB 10,000/SATA RAID 1 Mirror (Total working data 222GB)
>
>I'm also building a target backup server for this new file server
>which will contain 1 tape drive and the following to perform disk to
>disk backup:
>
>(1) GB Ethernet
>(4) 250GB 7200/SATA RAID 1 Mirror  (Total Backup Capacity 500GB)
>
>I'm trying to build a file server/backup system that would be able to
>handle
>multiple streams of data to allow for the fastest backup. There are
>many
>small files to be backed up. My personal preference is RAID 1. Since
>none of my file server partitions are larger then 74GB I'm not worried
>that a backup will be larger then any of my backup server partitions.
>
>My question is, how do I build theses systems to get the fastest
>backup possible? Should I install multiple GB nics? Is there an array
>controller that is specifically designed to handle mutliple streams of
>data? I'm aware that the Disk I/O is usually the cause of the
>bottleneck during backup. Will moving both server and backup system to
>RAID 5 significantly increase speeds of backup? Can someone make some
>recommendations in terms of hardware/software.
>I'm aware that the OS can also increase file system overhead so I'm
>electing
>to try out Veritas Backup Exec (although quite frankly I've always
>been a fan
>of Xcopy).
>
>My current tests show me that I copy approximately 1.09GB of data in
>approximately 4:18 seconds with Backup Exec/verify on over a Gigabit
>connection to 7200 IDE drive. Backup Exec says that is a transfer rate
>of 435MB/second. Is there away to increase the speed of this to say
>1000MB/sec?
>Thanks in advanced for sharing any advice or experience you may have!
>
>Michelle

So 2 things jump out at me.

1) It's unlikely that the windows box can push 2 gigE links.
2) alot of small files is going to be slower than gigE can handle in
most cases anwyay.

I think you've got the right ideas in place, although I would probably
go with raid5 personally since I don't think you can sustain full gig
speeds anyway so the write overhead on the drives won't be noticeable.
Something else to consider on the server side is RAM.  I believe d2d
backups will cache data into RAM before flushing to disk just like any
other incoming data.

~F

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

In article <727a9529.0409020635.3d36353d@posting.google.com>,
precisionweb@yahoo.com (Michelle) wrote:

> My current tests show me that I copy approximately 1.09GB of data in
> approximately 4:18 seconds with Backup Exec/verify on over a Gigabit
> connection to 7200 IDE drive. Backup Exec says that is a transfer rate
> of 435MB/second. Is there away to increase the speed of this to say
> 1000MB/sec?

No IDE hard drive can move anywhere near 435 MB (that's 435 megaBYTES)
per second. No single hard drive for that matter. Nor could Gigabit
Ethernet. Somewhere there is a big calculation error, megaBIT vs,
megaBYTE perhaps?

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

flux <support@fluxsoft.com> wrote in message news:<support-19B358.02195803092004@news.verizo
n.net>...
> In article <727a9529.0409020635.3d36353d@posting.google.com>,
>  precisionweb@yahoo.com (Michelle) wrote:
> 
>
> No IDE hard drive can move anywhere near 435 MB (that's 435 megaBYTES)
> per second. No single hard drive for that matter. Nor could Gigabit
> Ethernet. Somewhere there is a big calculation error, megaBIT vs,
> megaBYTE perhaps?

I'm sorry I meant 435MB per minute. I wouldn't be asking for
assistance if it was per sec!  Sorry...

-Michelle

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Faeandar <mr_castalot@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<5v7fj01bn2b0efcmqpi4fhls3naafc8k8g@4
ax.com>...
> On 2 Sep 2004 07:35:18 -0700, precisionweb@yahoo.com (Michelle) wrote:
> 
>
> So 2 things jump out at me.
>
> 1) It's unlikely that the windows box can push 2 gigE links.
> 2) alot of small files is going to be slower than gigE can handle in
> most cases anwyay.
>
> I think you've got the right ideas in place, although I would probably
> go with raid5 personally since I don't think you can sustain full gig
> speeds anyway so the write overhead on the drives won't be noticeable.
> Something else to consider on the server side is RAM.  I believe d2d
> backups will cache data into RAM before flushing to disk just like any
> other incoming data.
>
> ~F

I'm sorry, are you saying that the write overhead will be negligible
when considering RAID 1 vs RAID 5? Or would RAID 5 give me more
performance?

-Michelle

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

>> 
>
>I'm sorry, are you saying that the write overhead will be negligible
>when considering RAID 1 vs RAID 5? Or would RAID 5 give me more
>performance?
>
>-Michelle

Considering the IO potential you appear to have the overhead for raid5
will be unnoticeable.  If you were on 4gb FC with 20 10k RPM drives
then I would say don't use raid5.  But considering the number of
drives and their type, as well as a single gigE capacity, raid5 is
fine.  And it gives you more space.

Performance for raid1+0 v. raid5 always favors raid1+0.  I say raid1+0
because with 4 or more drives you would likely stripe the mirror, not
concatenate.

~F

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 08:47:13 -0700, Michelle wrote:
>
> I'm sorry, are you saying that the write overhead will be negligible
> when considering RAID 1 vs RAID 5? Or would RAID 5 give me more
> performance?
>
> -Michelle
For performance go with RAID 1  Stripped mirror. Raid 5 is great until
your lose a spindle.  Then performance startes to suck.

Guy

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