BackupPC-users

Re: [BackupPC-users] # of files per backup job

2008-04-15 17:23:43
Subject: Re: [BackupPC-users] # of files per backup job
From: Jonathan Dill <jonathan AT nerds DOT net>
To: Tim Hall <thall AT insightit DOT ca>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:23:27 -0400
On Apr 15, 2008, at 4:54 PM, Tim Hall wrote:

> Hi can anyone comment on back jobs with lots
> of files effecting transfer time?
>
> I have 2 big backup jobs which are taking too
> long over a WAN link.  Would it be advisable to
> break the jobs up into many smaller jobs with
> fewer files / job?  Would I be gaining anything?

How fast are the WAN links at both ends?  You may also want to look at  
latency and any packet loss between the two endpoints.  If you are  
backing up GB of data even a T1 is pretty slow, especially if you have  
other data going across the same link, it could create an inadvertent  
"DoS" if you peg the whole connection.

If you are using rsync, and especially if memory and / or  CPU is a  
bottlneck, breaking it up into smaller jobs could help by reducing the  
size of the "list" that rsync has to build and transfer.  Having a lot  
of files will increase the size of the list.

What I have done in some cases is to just "mirror" what I want to  
backup across the link to a "separate drive" at the remote end and  
then use BackupPC at the remote end to make a "backup" of the mirror.   
The "mirror" is just a copy of whatever is on the original, but  
BackupPC provides the "history" of changes over time so you have more  
than just last night's backup.

That also helps for initial set up since I can use e.g. an external  
USB drive at the local site, do the initial mirror via USB rather then  
over the WAN link, and then physically take the USB drive to the  
remote (or maybe in your case ship the drive) and plug it into the  
server there.  Optionally, substitute eSATA / SCSI / iSCSI / IEEE 1394  
your connection type of choice for USB.  Backing up many GB over T1  
will take several hours, especially if you limit bandwidth so that it  
does not just peg your T1 and put everything else out of commission  
until it finishes.

For e.g

20 GiB * 1024 MiB / GiB = 20480 MiB / 1.544 MiB/s = 13264 s / 3600 s/ 
hour = 3:41 hours

That would be for an optimal point-to-point T1 ignoring bandwidth lost  
to framing bits, in practice will most likely take quite a bit longer  
than that, especially if it is through VPN across the internet with  
possible congestion at routers along the way.

>
>
> would 10 jobs with a 100,000 files each complete
> faster then 1 job with 1,000,000 files .... if they
> were backing up the same information
>
> thanks
>
>
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