Getting slow transfer speeds with vDR 1.2

[Uniland]

Hi.

Recently our company has been looking for a backup solution for our VMs and we saw that vDR 1.2 would fit our needs nicely. We are running vSphere 4.0 update 1 with two hosts and about 13 VMs. We have fibre connecting our hosts to an EMC SAN. After deploying the VM and running a few backups, we noticed that the transfer speeds were quite slow. On average, a full backup runs at about 500 MB/min for all VMs. As of right now, All VMs and their data drives are in LUN1 and the only other LUN we have is a mirrored 1TB LUN which is being used as the destination for all the backups. We did try to move the destination to LUN1, but the transfer speeds did not change. I have attached some logs. I did notice that it always seems to say "Performing incremental back up of disk" no matter if it was taking a full backup or incremental one. Any idea on what may be the bottleneck or even some place to start looking?

Thanks,

Josh

[f10]

Hi Josh,

What licenses do you have for the vSphere hosts, if its Advanced, Enterprise or Enterprise Plus VDR appliance will hot add the virtual disks that its gonna back up hence reduce the backup time.

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f10

VCP3,VCP4,HP UX CSA

[Uniland]

The license that we have is for Advanced. I did notice that it does "SCSI Hot-Add" the vmdks for the VMs that have VMware tools installed. I just found it weird that when vDR is performing the full backups, it shows it as doing an incremental backup.

[RParker]

Recently our company has been looking for a backup solution for our VMs

To call VDR a "solution" would be like calling Doritos "nourishment". Yeah you can probably do it, but not for very long...

we saw that vDR 1.2 would fit our needs nicely.

You either need some new glasses, or you didn't look very deeply at VDR.

We have fibre connecting our hosts to an EMC SAN. After deploying the VM and running a few backups, we noticed that the transfer speeds were quite slow.

Problem number 1! That's the best it will get.

On average, a full backup runs at about 500 MB/min for all VMs. As of right now, All VMs and their data drives are in LUN1 and the only other LUN we have is a mirrored 1TB LUN which is being used as the destination for all the backups.

Problem number 2! No settings or options to adjust.

I did notice that it always seems to say "Performing incremental back up of disk" no matter if it was taking a full backup or incremental one.

Problem number 3! Not very well documented, and nebulous messages...

There are many other problems like no way to start or recover from failed backups, no reporting, it crashes (although 1.2 is better than before). This product is still VERY much a WORK in progress. Progress being related to a tree sloth in a race against the Haley's comet. So it has a LONG way to go.

It BARELY meets minimal needs, but if you truly need a solution, look at PHD express or VizionCore vRanger. That's what you need. IF FREE is your ONLY concern, VDR meets that. If however you want something reliable and worthwhile, you have to spend some $$$.

[Uniland]

I have tried PHD express and VizionCore vRanger Pro. Both yielded the same average speeds and thats why I know the bottleneck is else where besides vDR. We had the most luck with vRanger Pro but with similar speeds, its not worth paying for it. I have seen logs from other disscussions with transfer speeds over 5 GB/min on full backups so they must be doing something right.

[Uniland]

So to re-iterate, You might be 100% correct on your assesment of VDR, but the real problem is the fact that we are getting terrible speeds no matter which solution we try. Maybe my expectations are off but I cant believe we should only be getting 500MB/min. Those speeds arent acceptable when backing up 500 GB of data when everything resides on EMC storage with fiber connections. I have seen other people's speeds much faster, so I am looking for the best way to troubleshoot the cause of these terribly slow speeds.

Thanks