Mike

It depends of what your configuration looks like and what files you are
backing up.

Think of this:

If you are backing up many small files on one SAN based machine and big
files on another machine, it goes without saying that the machine backing up
the bigger files will have better throughput times.

LAN free versus LAN based on the other hand also has an easy explanation:

With LAN free going straight to high speed LTO tape drives the small/big
file dilemma also play a role because the LTO drive will now be
"shoeshining" when backing up small files, whereas if the client was LAN
based, the diskpool would recieve the backup before it went off to tape.
When backing up small files via LAN free there is a good possibility that
the LTO drives will not be streaming and hence the total backup thruput is
less.

Does this waffle make any sense?

Rgds
John