> George Sinclair 
> 
> If you have a very large number of files on a given file system can this 

> slow down the backup write speeds, not the actual completion times, but 
> the speed of the writing to tape itself?

I've always assumed (but I'm all ears to learn better) that the displayed 
write speeds are calculated like most things of that type are: amount / 
time. So, if there are lots of files, per-file procedures internal to 
Networker will be repeated much more often than for a large file of 
equivalent size and performance will suffer (i.e., poor streaming). 
Subsequently, the computed write speeds will be slow(er) if they're not 
calculated indivdually for each file.

Or is that an incorrect deduction?

But, I've seen the exact same thing, although not to the scale you 
describe. Rarely do we have single savesets with more than a few hundred 
thousand small (similar) files. Some have more files, but they vary in 
size and composition. I assume all the file opening/closing is a major 
culprit...?

I guess I've just assumed that excessive_number_of_smaller_files = 
slower_backup_performance, since that's been my experience. Maybe I'm 
wrong?

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