I have a question about backing up Windows clients with the "NT with
compression" directive, and the performance of networker with regards
to small files.

I am backing up a windows client over a private gigabit lan to an
adv_file device which is a 2.4TB RAID array connected to a linux server
running networker 7.1.1. It seems that the amount of data backed up
from the windows client increased the backup data size on the server in
a 1:1 ratio, eg. not being compressed. I ran an ethereal tcp dump on
the backup, and sure enough the data did not look compressed as I could
read some of the data being backed up in plain text, which should not
happen if it is being compressed. Is this a bug or a misconfiguration
of the server or client?

I have also noticed the performance of networker in regards to small
file sizes is very poor. The server is a dual 1.2Ghz xeon on a private,
tuned gigabit network. If I backup four 500MB files, it will backup at
around 30-35MB/s. However, most of what I am backing up is user account
home directories, which consists of mostly small files. Most of the
time the backup speed hovers around 500KB/s to 1MB/s, sometimes jumping
to 20MB/s, but on average only peaking at 5MB/s. The client servers
that are being backed up are dual 1.1Ghz with a Gig of ram and using
the UNIX with compression directive. I was quite disappointed with this
speed as I was hoping to use the RAID as a fast backup space for
staging to tape later, but it is not much faster than tape on average.
Is there any way to tune the performance of the networker software for
smaller files?

Thanks,

Joe

--
Joe Mesterhazy
ECpE UNIX Administrator
2101 Coover Hall, Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011.  (515) 294-7359
http://www.mesterhazy.net/

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