Backing up & Replicating 8 TB Virtual Machine

[mwiseley]

So.. I am fairly new to Veeam, but it is an amazing product and works great. However, I have one very large server that is our main repository for files. It holds primarly pdf's so they don't dedup very well, and my jobs take forever. My replication job took 60 hours initially, and the 2nd run is looking like it is going to take at least 16 hours. And we are replicating locally right now. I have not moved our equipment offsite which is what the ultimate goal is and I know that will slow things down even more. Also, my hope was to back it up locally as well so we would have a backup copy locally and a replicated machine in the DR site. That seems to be doing better, but trying to figure out what the best method to back up that much data would be? I really can't do Incrementals with full synthetics as that would require twice as much disk and that puts me over 16 TB just for the backup of that server, plus the server itself, and the replicated storage which puts me at 32 TB. I thought about Reversed Incremental but didn't know if that required twice as much space or not. Also, thought about doing the backup jobs to the SAN and letting the SAN replicate or backing up directly to the DR storage? Anyone have any suggestions or experience with large server backups? FYI, I'm using HP/Lefthand iSCSI for my storage.

Thanks!!
Mark

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Mark,

That seems to be doing better, but trying to figure out what the best method to back up that much data would be?

Before I answer this question, could you please tell me what backup mode are you using (direct SAN access)? What is the CPU load on the backup server while replication job is running?

I really can't do Incrementals with full synthetics as that would require twice as much disk and that puts me over 16 TB just for the backup of that server, plus the server itself, and the replicated storage which puts me at 32 TB. I thought about Reversed Incremental but didn't know if that required twice as much space or not.

As far as storage space is concerned, I would recommend using reversed incremental backup mode, because it doesn't require you to have two full backups on the target storage at the same time, please check out our sticky F.A.Q. for more details on the backup modes.

Also, thought about doing the backup jobs to the SAN and letting the SAN replicate or backing up directly to the DR storage? Anyone have any suggestions or experience with large server backups? FYI, I'm using HP/Lefthand iSCSI for my storage.

What would be the connection between main and DR sites?

As to other users experience, then please search our forums for existing topics, by the way here is one of them: Backup of really big vm

Thanks.

[mwiseley]

That seems to be doing better, but trying to figure out what the best method to back up that much data would be?

Before I answer this question, could you please tell me what backup mode are you using (direct SAN access)? What is the CPU load on the backup server while replication job is running?

I am using Direct SAN mode. The computer load is usually under 40% even with a couple jobs running at the same time. Server is dual processor quad core with 28 Gigs of RAM.

Also, thought about doing the backup jobs to the SAN and letting the SAN replicate or backing up directly to the DR storage? Anyone have any suggestions or experience with large server backups? FYI, I'm using HP/Lefthand iSCSI for my storage.

What would be the connection between main and DR sites?

Right now we have a 20Meg pipe provisioned but we have fiber so we can increase that if needed. Just trying to keep the WAN link costs down.

As to other users experience, then please search our forums for existing topics, by the way here is one of them: Backup of really big vm

I did a quick search before posting, but obviously didn't do a very good job. I did read through the one you posted and I am trying the backup job right now with no compression and WAN targe to see what that results in. I will do some 30 minute tests with different settings and see what I come up with. Didn't think about doing smaller test. I was letting them run to completion which mean 3+ days between test. Thanks for you input, and I hope there are more ideas out there.


Thanks.

[st0623]

How were your results when you turned off compression and used a WAN target?

[mwiseley]

How were your results when you turned off compression and used a WAN target?

Yes. Turning off Compression and using a WAN target actually gave me horrible results. 7MB/s vs. 26MB/s when using Optimal and Local Target. I have ran through 11 tests now and still doing more looking for a combination that might work. Any other suggestions welcome. I haven't even moved this offsite yet.

Thanks,
Mark