"Cox, Shawn" <Shawn.Cox AT pcca DOT com> wrote on 02/25/2008 01:05:50 PM:

> 
> In my experience this mostly depends upon what it is you are backing
> up.  In my world SQL backup containers compress 90% and thus are 
> handled wonderfully by the compress asm.  However my file servers 
> which have hundreds of thousands of small files do not respond all 
> that well to the compress asm.  What comprises that 570G?

File server; no SQL databases. Maybe a stray Access db. Otherwise, Word 
docs, Excel spreadsheets, image files, things like that.

> I'm pretty sure there is no all or nothing requirement for compression.
> 
> I think someone suggested in the past testing with bigasm to 
> understand hardware compression/compress asm interactions under a 
> specific set of hardware.

Hmmm ... I think I'd have to specify the "bigasm" in a directive file, 
since there doesn't seem to be an option like that from the management 
console GUI.

> 
> --Shawn
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:[email protected].
> EDU] On Behalf Of MIchael Leone
> Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 11:46 AM
> To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
> Subject: [Networker] Compression on Win2003 servers question
> 
> I have a Win2003 server, NW 7.4 SP1, using an HP SDLT autoloader. 
> Total size of backup is about 600G (589G, according to mminfo). We'd
> like to do a full backup every day. However, I seem to be averaging 
> 4 tapes (3 full tapes, and 25% used on the last) every day. Now, an 
> SDLT tape is 160G native, up to 320G compressed, so 600G would need 
> 4 tapes native (3 and
> 3/4 or so, according to the math).
> 
> IOW, it doesn't appear as if compression is being used, or just 
> barely used. I see nowhere in NW how to turn on hardware compression
> on the autochanger. Am I just missing it?
> 
> I did change to using the "NT with compression" directive, which 
> didn't seem to affect the output; I am still getting 3.25 tapes per day 
used.
> 
> My question: I am backing up 3 servers, 2 of which were set to use 
> the compression directive, and 1 was not (this last server is very 
> small, and doesn't significantly add to the total). Do all group 
> members need to use the same compression directive, else NW won't 
> compress? It shouldn't be a problem to make all 3 servers use the 
> compression directive, but I thought I could use it only on the 
> server that needs it (one server accounts for about 570G of the 590G 
total).
> 
> Thanks
> 
> --
> Michael Leone

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