Folks,
 
Last week I weighed into a discussion about restore performance on
Windows platforms and stated that it is only possible to restore
something like 50-60K files per hour.  Someone else in the list provided
information that contradicted my assertion.  This caused me to think and
since I had the resources in the lab, I decided to run some new tests to
see what I might see.
 
Something has apparently changed.   I will stick by my 18 month old
results, but I have now observed much higher restore performance.  Not
sure what the story is.  My original testing was done on Windows 2003
Server.  The new testing I am doing is on Windows 2003 R2 and the latest
service pack.  I conjecture that something changed in the file create
code or that the hardware I am running now is significantly faster than
18 months ago.  I like the former but willing to consider the latter.
My testing all those months ago was on the latest hardware at the time,
including I/O subsystems and it didn't really matter what the storage
was: locally attached SCSI or FC attached SAN storage.  Results were
very similar.
 
Today's numbers look something like 200K files/per hour restoring from
file device class pools on Compellent SAN over GigE to another FC
attached storage array.  Large read and write caches on both sides.
Hardly any CPU utilized on the client and upwards of 80% network
utilization.  I believe my bottleneck is on the Compellent SAN but will
investigate further by teaming my NICs and getting a bit more network
involved.
 
I intend to publish a new STORServer/TSM performance report in the next
couple of weeks detailing what I've learned.  Expect this to include
LTO-4 performance as well as the backup/restore stuff already mentioned.
Thought, though, that I should get what I had together out to all of you
sooner rather later since I was very wrong in my original post.
 
Thanks,
 
Kelly J. Lipp
VP Manufacturing & CTO
STORServer, Inc.
485-B Elkton Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
719-266-8777
lipp AT storserver DOT com