VMWare Backup Slow

FYI, I have created a B2D folder on my Local 2 disk RAID 0 partition.  It saved me about 5 minutes which can be attributed mostly to the increased data transfer rate.  The underlying problem still exists... why does it take 20 minutes before any data movement begins?

Damien1234, maybe this is an insight.

It might be related to this statement in a technote under NetBackup for VMware.

"NTFS File system cannot handle writing of large files"

So the option is to split the snapshot copy to 2GB chunks, if you can.

TN: GENERAL ERROR: Large FullVM Snapshots using VMware Consolidated Backup(VCB) are slower than expected
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/323230.htm

I was facing the same problems in NetBackup using a Proxy server. I was backing up a Windows Server that was made of of VMDK's that totalled 250GB
It started off reasonably fast and as expected - the copy of snapshot to offhost staging disk - then it just slowed to an almighty snails pace.

It seemed for me round about 50GB and thereafter that it was very slow - paint drying slow.

 Another thing too is if you are doing an NBD based backup, or Network Based DIsk...  It's absurdly slow.  

You are trying to transfer gig's of data over a single Gb link.  It'll take a while, it's just physics.  Sure you can trunk links, but most times, your disk i/o is not sufficient to maximize your Gb links.

My 25GB Windows image and NBD went at a rate of about 110MB/min and took some 11 minutes.

When I did a SAN based backup, it went to 1800MB/min and took less than 3 minutes.  

 I think you are right, that NBD is through the service console.

Add to that, NBD in vSphere4 is crippled to 25MB/sec!  in ESX3.x it could go much faster.  This is a known "feature," to Vmware.
There are work arounds, but ultimately SAN is preferred.

They really screwed the pooch for the SMB.  Hyper-V away!

Hi All,

cmiiw the backup speed is limited by the vSphere ESX console right ?

I guess is nothing much we can do to make the NBD backup process faster ?

I'm now trialling 3rd party application which supports vStorage API rather than trying multiple VCB mode (SAN, NBD, Hotadd), Hopefully BE 2010 that will be released soon can performs better backup process without the need of VCB Proxy.

Hi Albert,

I think that they all do use ESX's Service Console for backup data streaming, so there's not much we can do about it. Of course i dont know all the products on the market, so you might have better performance with some other product, or might not.

New BE2010 will use vStorage API's, VCB isn't requirement anymore, and there will be plenty of other enhancements in new BE. But still, there's SAN/NBD/Hotadd transfer methods, as most of the other products will use only network.
Staging area for VM Backups isn't needed anymore when backing up VM's from vSphere, there will be incremental options for VM backups and so on, at least they are in Beta version.

OK, then i shall be patiently wait for the General Availability of the Backup Exec 2010 :-O

I appreciate the help.  Apparently I'm SOL no matter what since I don't have a SAN.  I can change the file size to 2GB no problemo but I think that's really just taking whatever scraps I can get.  I suppose I will just keep my BE licensing up-to-date and pray 2010 is better.  Unfortunately I'll be upgrading to vSphere 4 before then which apparently means my backups will become even slower.

Gentlemen thanks again but here are some words of advice: Never become motivational speakers. LOL.

Why upgrade now?  The trade-off of slower backups upwards of 2x slower worth going to something that is "cutting edge," no thank you.

BE2010 comes out in Jan, can't you wait two months?

It will remove the VCB requirement and use the new vStorage API.  It may not remove what is coming out of the service console(as I dont know how it works exactly), but the dedupe it can do, the incrementals, and other things should more then make up for it.

Hi Teiva-boy,

I've use BE2010 and wondering if the Beta version of BE 2010 already included the vStorage API and Deducplication support to backup our VM over our LAN ?
Because from the options menu all i can see is just the same options like in BE 12.5 SP2 AVVI ?

vStorage API is a Vmware thing, not a Symantec thing.  You need to try it out.  Perhaps read the manual?

The Dedupe is a Symantec thing.  Although vStorage is supposed to be able to do some block level mapping of some sort, again a VMWare technology that supposedly BE2010 is to integrate with.

Sadly what is beta, is NOT final, so it's tough to say what will make it into the first GA build....  *crosses fingers for it all!*