Large vrb file sizes for file servers

[VirtualD]

Hi,

We are evaluating Veeam Backup 4.1.1 at the moment and all tests have had excellent results, our file servers however are producing some strange results and I wondered if anyone else has experienced something similar. A quick background on the environment, 16 esx servers at this site running vsphere 4.0 update 1, connected to EVA 6400 san. Physical Veeam server, 4gb ram, 2 x quad core cpu, connected to EMC CX-320 for backup storage.

Now for the strangeness, I am comparing the veeam backup results with our existing HP Data Protector network file level backups. The file server is thin provisioned and the current combined size of the vmdk files is 1.35tb. The data totals about 1.2tb.

The first veeam backup for this server took 7hrs 22mins and reported a speed of 63MB/s, the size of the backup file was 674gb. The network file level backup takes four times as long so we were happy with the speed and looking forward to the subsequent incrementals, change block tracking was successfully enabled.

We have now run 3 incrementals on this server, timewise they are taking the same amount of time as the network file level backups (which do not run at the same time) but the vrb files are considerably larger than the amount of data that the file level incremental backups are picking up. For example:

Incremental 1

Veeam Time 2hrs 18mins
VRB Size 48gb

File Level Time 2hrs 55mins
Inc Size 18gb


Incremental 2

Veeam Time 2hrs 42mins
VRB Size 81gb

File Level Time 2hrs 48mins
Inc Size 22gb

Incremental 3

Veeam Time 3hrs 59mins
VRB Size 81gb

File Level Time 3hrs 45mins
Inc Size 26gb

As you can see the backups through veeam are considerably bigger and the times are very similar to the network file level backups. The jobs are set to SAN mode only, and all other jobs including citrix, sql, application servers are performing perfectly, extremely fast incremental times and low vrb file sizes.

If anyone has insight into this I would appreciate it, this is the only issue I need to resolve before I can get the product approved (and take 10TB out of our network backups!!)

Thanks

[Gostev]

Please review some suggestions in the the existing thread:
VRB's really large for a small environment

Please continue posting there if necessary, I will lock this thread to avoid having duplicate discussions on the same subject.