Bacula-users

Re: [Bacula-users] Very low performance with compression and encryption !

2011-01-20 13:55:36
Subject: Re: [Bacula-users] Very low performance with compression and encryption !
From: Paul Mather <paul AT gromit.dlib.vt DOT edu>
To: "Dan Langille" <dan AT langille DOT org>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:52:43 -0500
On Jan 20, 2011, at 12:44 PM, Dan Langille wrote:

> 
> On Thu, January 20, 2011 12:28 pm, Silver Salonen wrote:
>> On Thursday 20 January 2011 19:02:33 Paul Mather wrote:
>>> On Jan 20, 2011, at 11:01 AM, John Drescher wrote:
>>> 
>>>>>> This is normal. If you want fast compression do not use software
>>>>>> compression and use a tape drive with HW compression like LTO
>>> drives.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> John
>>>>> Not really an option for file/disk devices though.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I've been tempted to experiment with BTRFS using LZO or standard zlib
>>>>> compression for storing the volumes and see how the performance
>>> compares
>>>>> to having bacula-fd do the compression before sending - I have a
>>>>> suspicion the former might be better..
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Doing the compression at the filesystem level is an idea I have wanted
>>>> to try for several years. Hopefully one of the filesystems that
>>>> support this becomes stable soon.
>>> 
>>> I've been using ZFS with a compression-enabled fileset for a while now
>>> under FreeBSD.  It is transparent and reliable.  Looking just now, I'm
>>> not getting great compression ratios for my backup data: 1.09x.  I am
>>> using the speed-oriented compression algorithm on this fileset, though,
>>> because the hardware is relatively puny.  (It is a Bacula test bed.)
>>> Probably I'd get better compression if I enabled one of the GZIP levels.
>> 
>> Isn't the low compression ratio because of bacula volume format that
>> "messes up" data in FS point of view? The same thing that is a problem in
>> implementing (or using an FS-based) deduplication in Bacula.
> 
> I also use ZFS on FreeBSD.  Perhaps the above is a typo.  I get nearly 2.0
> compression ratio.
> 
> $ zfs get et compressratio
> NAME                                      PROPERTY       VALUE  SOURCE
> storage                                   compressratio  1.89x  -
> storage/compressed                        compressratio  1.90x  -
> storage/compressed/bacula                 compressratio  1.90x  -
> storage/compressed/[email protected]      compressratio  1.91x  -
> storage/compressed/[email protected]      compressratio  1.91x  -
> storage/compressed/[email protected]     compressratio  1.91x  -
> storage/compressed/[email protected]     compressratio  1.91x  -
> storage/compressed/bacula AT pre DOT pool.merge  compressratio  1.94x  -
> storage/compressed/home                   compressratio  1.00x  -
> storage/pgsql                             compressratio  1.00x  -


Nope, not a typo:

backup# zfs get compressratio
NAME                  PROPERTY       VALUE  SOURCE
backups               compressratio  1.07x  -
backups/bacula        compressratio  1.09x  -
backups/hosts         compressratio  1.46x  -
backups/san           compressratio  1.06x  -
backups/san@filedrop  compressratio  1.06x  -


The backups/bacula fileset is where my Bacula volumes are stored.  As I 
surmised, I get better compression ratios under GZIP-9 compression:

backup# zfs get compression
NAME                  PROPERTY     VALUE     SOURCE
backups               compression  off       default
backups/bacula        compression  on        local
backups/hosts         compression  gzip-9    local
backups/san           compression  on        local
backups/san@filedrop  compression  -         -

(Compression="on" equates to "lzjb," which is the most lightweight method, CPU 
resources wise, but not the best in terms of compression ratio achieved.)

I will probably switch the other filesets to GZIP compression, as ZFS 
performance has improved significantly under RELENG_8...

Cheers,

Paul.




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