Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3
The 64k limit was due to a tcp/ip stack limitation I have always found larger buffers (256k) generally provide the best performance. Only if you had lots of small files would I recommend anything less Flashbackup will definitely improve your performance as the data will not need to be uncompressed prior to passed to the backup device. The only factor to consider is that flashbackup will also backup the blocks on the drive which are empty - so you backup the entire volume. I am going to guess you wont see much performance going to disk as you issue is probably not at the backup target as you have a collection of LTO4 drives. A single LTO4 should be able to backup that entire volume in 6 hours easy - even if the SAN is running at 2GB. Can you share any info about your disk config? Is it SAN or internal storage? How many disks are in the config? If you run Windows perfmon how are your disk queues looking? Also - how many split I/O's are you getting? - ensuring proper file system / volume partition can make a decent difference Do you have bad disk fragmentation? All things that can make a difference . . . . From: veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of Nic Solomons Sent: 16 September 2010 14:44 To: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3 Also worth noting that for 2003+, if you don't have specific RTOs for individual files, you can do volume based backups with your standard licensing (but no individual file restore). http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/275912.htm Which should give you the same performance boost as flash backup. Make sure you use VSS though - not VSP (why they left the screenshot like that, no idea). Cheers, Nic From: veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of Martin, Jonathan Sent: 16 September 2010 14:23 To: WEAVER, Simon (external); William Brown; veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3 Windows is a piece of cake. Install the client. Select Policy Type: Flashbackup-Windows Setup Selection List: \\.\R file:///\\.\R : (change drive letter as required) Run Policy Enjoy monumentally faster backups (on compressed volumes) You cannot backup the system drive (C:) or System State with Flashbackup. I normally run these in a 2nd OS policy. Be sure to test a restore. You can do entire volume restores, which are just as fast as backups. Or, you can restore individual files. -Jonathan From: veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of WEAVER, Simon (external) Sent: 15 September 2010 19:00 To: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3 Hi All Anyone got any real world experience on buffer settings: scenarion: Win2k3 San Media, connected to 2GB Fabric attached 8 LTO4 Drives. Due to drive availability, Multiplexing onto one drive. Main problem: One volume (1,7tb in size) takes over 4 days to fully complete. Got the Tuning Guide and Technote 244602, but I tried some settings, only to find the backup would not even mount tape correctly. So back to no settings at the mo. Volume are generic files/folders, mixture of large and small sizes. But 1.7TB's in my view should be done quicker. Also Data is compressed. Regards Simon The information contained in this e-mail and its attachments is confidential. It is intended only for the named address(es) and may not be disclosed to anyone else without Attenda's consent. ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3
On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 12:59 PM, WEAVER, Simon (external) simon.wea...@astrium.eads.net wrote: Anyone got any real world experience on buffer settings: scenarion: Win2k3 San Media, connected to 2GB Fabric attached 8 LTO4 Drives. Due to drive availability, Multiplexing onto one drive. Uggh. With LTO4 drives, your ideal situation would be ONE tape drive per 4Gbps HBA port if you're doing any sort of compression. If you can get 3:1 compression, you need to get 360MB/sec into your tape drive. With 2:1 compression, you'll have already over saturated a single LTO4 drive. Main problem: One volume (1,7tb in size) takes over 4 days to fully complete. On a compressed volume (as seen in other postings in this thread), you also burn a large amount of CPU to uncompress the data. With a standard file system backup, each file needs to be uncompressed by NTFS before NetBackup gets it. You then compress it at the tape drive. And you're obviously getting good compression or you wouldn't do this on the file system in the first place. So get back to my original point of not being able to drive the tape drive fast enough. You don't have just a buffer problem - it's actually the least of your problems. From another posting of yours: Cannot understand how we can recover a system is 2 days, when it takes double to backup completely! Recovery is typically longer than backup as well... Have also mixed with Multiplexing, and no joy! Multiplexing makes backups go faster but recoveries go slower. You need to focus on recoveries, not backups. The fastest recovery (from tape) will come from a fast media server and with multiplexing turned off. And turn off NTFS-based compression - to recover that data will mean either you restore to an uncompressed disk or the server is going to have to compress all that data again after it comes off of tape. .../Ed Ed Wilts, RHCE, BCFP, BCSD, SCSP, SCSE ewi...@ewilts.org Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/ewilts ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3
We use 262144 buffer size everywhere for both NET_BUFFER_SZ and tape SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS (or Windows equivalent). What I did find made a very large difference when I was benchmarking an LTO4 drive (which has a 4Gb FC interface) was switching between a 2Gb HBA and a 4Gb HBA – the throughput nearly doubled. That was testing with ‘dd’ not NetBackup, but was going through the (Solaris) OS. So I would see if there is any way that you can up the speed, even if you go point-to-point and not via a SAN switch to avoid having to upgrade your fabric [no use if you share the drives with SSO!] For Windows on FC you should find any modern FC driver will use the tape buffer size that you set. 64k was with the Windows scsi driver, and for some SCSI cards you might have to adjust the MaximumSGList in the registry – (http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/pipermail/veritas-bu/2006-February/083653.html) and (http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/5982-9971EN.pdf). More recent Adaptec driver install kits I have noticed do this for you. You should be able to see in the bptm log what size is being used. The fact you say the tape would not mount if you change settings *is* suspicious. Make sure you have the latest drive/robot settings files so your drives are properly set to variable block size. Again bptm log should help. If the data is compressed on disk then I assume the Windows OS is having to decompress on the fly as it reads the disk which is going to hit the client quite hard on the CPU. Not much you can do about that, but FlashBackup would not have to do that so I’d say was worth trying. Bear in mind it will back up the entire volume, so you don’t want to be backing up a lot of empty space (though paradoxically that empty space would compress nicely when it hits the LTO drive’s h/w compression, provided Windows is zeroing the blocks on file deletion…not sure if it does this or even can be made to…otherwise you have a great disk scavenger ;-) ). William From: veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of WEAVER, Simon (external) Sent: 15 September 2010 19:00 To: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3 Hi All Anyone got any real world experience on buffer settings: scenarion: Win2k3 San Media, connected to 2GB Fabric attached 8 LTO4 Drives. Due to drive availability, Multiplexing onto one drive. Main problem: One volume (1,7tb in size) takes over 4 days to fully complete. Got the Tuning Guide and Technote 244602, but I tried some settings, only to find the backup would not even mount tape correctly. So back to no settings at the mo. Volume are generic files/folders, mixture of large and small sizes. But 1.7TB's in my view should be done quicker. Also Data is compressed. Regards Simon This email (including any attachments) may contain confidential and/or privileged information or information otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately, do not copy this message or any attachments and do not use it for any purpose or disclose its content to any person, but delete this message and any attachments from your system. Astrium disclaims any and all liability if this email transmission was virus corrupted, altered or falsified. -o- Astrium Limited, Registered in England and Wales No. 2449259 Registered Office: Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2AS, England --- This e-mail was sent by GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited (registered in England and Wales No. 1047315), which is a member of the GlaxoSmithKline group of companies. The registered address of GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited is 980 Great West Road, Brentford, Middlesex TW8 9GS. --- ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3
Hi William Well it wont accept the settings, so I am going to look at: 1) Flash Backups 2) Try backup to disk 3) Use NTBackup have a comparison to work with. I also have an Eval License of all features! Hooray! Quesiton: Can anyone confirm the best way to setup Flash Backups. Running through the Beginners Guide now (Quick Start Guide), but need to know of any gotchas! - Just learned it cannot do system volumes. S. From: veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of William Brown Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2010 11:33 AM To: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3 We use 262144 buffer size everywhere for both NET_BUFFER_SZ and tape SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS (or Windows equivalent). What I did find made a very large difference when I was benchmarking an LTO4 drive (which has a 4Gb FC interface) was switching between a 2Gb HBA and a 4Gb HBA - the throughput nearly doubled. That was testing with 'dd' not NetBackup, but was going through the (Solaris) OS. So I would see if there is any way that you can up the speed, even if you go point-to-point and not via a SAN switch to avoid having to upgrade your fabric [no use if you share the drives with SSO!] For Windows on FC you should find any modern FC driver will use the tape buffer size that you set. 64k was with the Windows scsi driver, and for some SCSI cards you might have to adjust the MaximumSGList in the registry - (http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/pipermail/veritas-bu/2006-February/083653 .html) and (http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/5982-9971EN.pdf). More recent Adaptec driver install kits I have noticed do this for you. You should be able to see in the bptm log what size is being used. The fact you say the tape would not mount if you change settings *is* suspicious. Make sure you have the latest drive/robot settings files so your drives are properly set to variable block size. Again bptm log should help. If the data is compressed on disk then I assume the Windows OS is having to decompress on the fly as it reads the disk which is going to hit the client quite hard on the CPU. Not much you can do about that, but FlashBackup would not have to do that so I'd say was worth trying. Bear in mind it will back up the entire volume, so you don't want to be backing up a lot of empty space (though paradoxically that empty space would compress nicely when it hits the LTO drive's h/w compression, provided Windows is zeroing the blocks on file deletion...not sure if it does this or even can be made to...otherwise you have a great disk scavenger ;-) ). William From: veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of WEAVER, Simon (external) Sent: 15 September 2010 19:00 To: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3 Hi All Anyone got any real world experience on buffer settings: scenarion: Win2k3 San Media, connected to 2GB Fabric attached 8 LTO4 Drives. Due to drive availability, Multiplexing onto one drive. Main problem: One volume (1,7tb in size) takes over 4 days to fully complete. Got the Tuning Guide and Technote 244602, but I tried some settings, only to find the backup would not even mount tape correctly. So back to no settings at the mo. Volume are generic files/folders, mixture of large and small sizes. But 1.7TB's in my view should be done quicker. Also Data is compressed. Regards Simon This email (including any attachments) may contain confidential and/or privileged information or information otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately, do not copy this message or any attachments and do not use it for any purpose or disclose its content to any person, but delete this message and any attachments from your system. Astrium disclaims any and all liability if this email transmission was virus corrupted, altered or falsified. -o- Astrium Limited, Registered in England and Wales No. 2449259 Registered Office: Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2AS, England --- This e-mail was sent by GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited (registered in England and Wales No. 1047315), which is a member of the GlaxoSmithKline group of companies. The registered address of GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited is 980 Great West Road, Brentford, Middlesex TW8 9GS. --- This email (including any attachments) may contain confidential and/or privileged information or information otherwise protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately, do not copy this message or any attachments and do not use it for any purpose or disclose its
Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3
I agree, Flashbackup is the way to gp for large windows filesystems especially with millions of files. For those who tested in 5.x I'd recommend retesting it with current releases. Please alway look to the patch readme to determine if there are any known issues. This is a feature always chasing the largest filesystems. Sent from my mobile On Sep 16, 2010, at 8:23 AM, Martin, Jonathan jmart...@intersil.com wrote: ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3
Sorry using mobile device and hit send to quick. I'd also recommend for ALL windows clients Flash or standard to run defrag regularly with nightly maintenance regardless of the size eventually it will catch up. Sent from my mobile Kevin On Sep 16, 2010, at 8:30 AM, Kevin Holtz klh1...@gmail.com wrote: I agree, Flashbackup is the way to gp for large windows filesystems especially with millions of files. For those who tested in 5.x I'd recommend retesting it with current releases. Please alway look to the patch readme to determine if there are any known issues. This is a feature always chasing the largest filesystems. Sent from my mobile On Sep 16, 2010, at 8:23 AM, Martin, Jonathan jmart...@intersil.com wrote: ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3
Also worth noting that for 2003+, if you don’t have specific RTOs for individual files, you can do volume based backups with your standard licensing (but no individual file restore). http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/275912.htm Which should give you the same performance boost as flash backup. Make sure you use VSS though – not VSP (why they left the screenshot like that, no idea). Cheers, Nic From: veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of Martin, Jonathan Sent: 16 September 2010 14:23 To: WEAVER, Simon (external); William Brown; veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3 Windows is a piece of cake. Install the client. Select Policy Type: Flashbackup-Windows Setup Selection List: \\.\Rfile:///\\.\R: (change drive letter as required) Run Policy Enjoy monumentally faster backups (on compressed volumes) You cannot backup the system drive (C:) or System State with Flashbackup. I normally run these in a 2nd “OS” policy. Be sure to test a restore. You can do “entire volume” restores, which are just as fast as backups. Or, you can restore individual files. -Jonathan From: veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu [mailto:veritas-bu-boun...@mailman.eng.auburn.edu] On Behalf Of WEAVER, Simon (external) Sent: 15 September 2010 19:00 To: veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu Subject: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3 Hi All Anyone got any real world experience on buffer settings: scenarion: Win2k3 San Media, connected to 2GB Fabric attached 8 LTO4 Drives. Due to drive availability, Multiplexing onto one drive. Main problem: One volume (1,7tb in size) takes over 4 days to fully complete. Got the Tuning Guide and Technote 244602, but I tried some settings, only to find the backup would not even mount tape correctly. So back to no settings at the mo. Volume are generic files/folders, mixture of large and small sizes. But 1.7TB's in my view should be done quicker. Also Data is compressed. Regards Simon The information contained in this e-mail and its attachments is confidential. It is intended only for the named address(es) and may not be disclosed to anyone else without Attenda's consent. ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
Re: [Veritas-bu] Real World NBU Buffer settings Win2k3
simon.wea...@astrium.eads.net said: . . . Maybe I could look into this more. But I did want to find out if anyone had buffer settings recommended for large file system backups. Our new master server is Solaris, not Windows, but we did recently add a largish Windows file server client. It's currently dumping about 7TB to LTO4 in around 24 hours. In this case the bottleneck is the client's Gigabit Ethernet, which runs at a steady 80-90MB/sec the whole time. No NTFS compression on the Windows client, no FlashBackup, no multiplexing, and buffer settings are: SIZE_DATA_BUFFERS 262144 NUMBER_DATA_BUFFERS 32 The client is Win2k8R2 server, storage is Dell MD1200, 11x 2TB nearline SAS drives configured as a RAID-6 array. Regards, Marion ___ Veritas-bu maillist - Veritas-bu@mailman.eng.auburn.edu http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu
