Slow Network backups-fast local V9 NT

[jonesjp]

I am experiencing a local backup of over 1000 MB per minute but it drops to 50 and under MB per minute over the wire.
Arcserve 9 runs on a Dell 2550, Win2K SP3- 2GB ram- with a Dell LTO PV128T library, over 100MB ethernet with Nortel 450 switches.
Installing new SCSI drivers is what sped up the local speed to GB throughput, but it did not fix the network speed.
New NIC drivers and changing out the nic showed no improvement. Different mfg NICs did not help. All service packs are up to date on Arcserve V9 and Win2K.
Anyone out there run into this???
Thanks, Jim

 

[TheLad]

Usual thing to check first is network speed/duplex are same between source and destination. If possible, NET USE a drive from source to destination server and try a file copy as well to check the speed?

Are you using a Client Agent on the source? Do you have any virus guard on the source that is scanning all reads (hence everything that is backed up)?

-----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[jonesjp]

The copy speed and network speed accessing files seems to be fine. I am using the v9 client agents, open files agents and on one server the SQL agent. These all seem to working good. I get no errors in the log files for the backup.
We disabled all vires scanning on all 6 servers to eliminate that. We have tried matching the server NICS speed with the Nortel switch settings at all available settings and nothing showed any improvment. I just don't know enough about how Arcserve v9 moves data over the wire.
We tried a couple of different NICs with no change in speed.I had a slow down network wide but it turned out to be the novell client and we were able to fix that issue.
my overall network speed seems very fast now. I just need to get the bug out of Arcserve. Dell assures me I should see GB speed over the wire.
Thanks, Jim

 

[TheLad]

I don't think you will see GB speed over the wire, even on 100Mb Full Duplex I don't think it is possible!

As far as network speed/duplex is concerned, is it forced on both server and network port? If you are using 100Mb Full Duplex, try switching to 100Mb half duplex to see if you get any better performance. Sounds crazy I know, but give it a go!

-----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[Nightwatch]

I agree, I've just changed all of my NIC's to Half/100 and I have seen much better performance. Verify that if your servers are running thru a switch that the ports are at AUTO.