I wrote a perl script to duplicate the most recent, successful, full
backup images for a particular class.  The script is available at
http://perlvault.sourceforge.net/ (beta release still...)

The problem I am having is in the performance of the image copies.  My
expectation was that the tape to tape copies would be faster than the
backups themselves.  The regular backup performance is limited by the
fact that there are tons of small files and by the network speed / cpu
speed of the client.  My understanding is that the images (once on tape)
are one sequential file, which should lend itself well to copying.

The master is an E4500 running Solaris 5.8.  I am using LTO drives which
are SAN attached.  I've seen throughput (using iostat) of 11 MB/second
during regular backups.  During the image copies, I get between 5 - 7
MB/second.  The regular backups do not use any multiplexing.

Is there any tuning parameters I can tweak?  
Anyone have any ideas?

Regards,
-Eric
-- 
Eric Forgette
Unix Systems Administrator