VCB Proxy Disk i/o is at 100%

[lillebi]

I have now tested Veeam Backup 3.1 for a while.
I have installet Veeam Backup VCB Proxy server on a Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise sp2.

I have now found a bottle neck on the VCB Proxy server.
When I make a backup I use server 2003 System Monitor. Her I can see that
Avg. Disk Bytes/Read
Avg. Disk Bytes/transfer
Avg. Disk Queue Length
is all at 100 %.

So it seems that the physical disk is the bottleneck on the VCB Proxy server.

Is it possible to make the VCB Proxy server use an other disk on our SAN instead of the local disk to process data on?
What is your recommendations regarding disks on the VCB Proxy server?

Can we increase performance is we use Striped volumes or Raid on the disk on the VCB Proxy server?

If I backup one of our servers I get a performance rate on 110 MB/sek.
All the others the performance rate is about 40 to 50 MB/sek.
Can you explain how this can happen.

I hope that you can help me with this problem.

Gretings Brian

[Gostev]

Brian, actually with Veeam Backup data never hits the disk on VCB proxy server, instead it is being processed on the fly, in memory. I would not trust the SysMon statistics because most likely it shows incorrect data due to Veeam Backup I/O interception.

[lillebi]

Hi Gostev,

When I starts the job and looks in C:\Documents and Settings\VeeamBackupAdmin\Local Settings\Temp\1\veeamvcbbbe90cae-d23f-46b6-a3ee-f4a62de89e9e i can see that the hole .vmdk file is downloaded to this dir.
After it is downloaded it disappears and the .vmdk file starts from 0 and builds up slowly.
When i then use Performance monitors Disk Read Bytes/sek it is 100% but the read is 0%
So to me it seems as it is using the local disk very much.
On the server I can also see the light indicating disk activity is on all the time.

[Gostev]

Brian, this directory and all files inside are virtual - they do not exist in reality, even though you can see them through Windows Explorer and other tools... our proprietary technology, rocket science at its best - and exactly the reason why Veeam Backup is much faster than other VCB-based solutions.

If you still don't believe me, try to backup VM which has larger size than free space on your C: drive.

[lillebi]

Hi Gostev,
Hmm.. I thought that I have found the bottleneck in the system.
But if it is virtual, then the disk read on the VBC Proxy disk can not bee the problem?

[Gostev]

Most definitely not.

Generally, if both initial (full) and incremental backups are slow, the issue is VCB data retrieval speed. Based on the feedback, VCB does not integrate well with some storages, and could be quite slow to fetch data. Additionally, things like outdated HBA drivers or enabled multipathing can cause slowdown.

If initial (full) is slow, but incremental is much faster, then the issue is your target backup storage (I/O controller itself or its write cache settings, actual storage speed, etc.)

Hope this helps.