Working with tape media in the Veeam B&R interface is slow

[AKcongo]

Does anyone else find that working with tape media in the Veeam B&R interface is excruciatingly slow?

We have some large file backups to tape of CIFS shares that are up to 7 TB large with millions of files. When I look at the Properties of one of these tapes and the Files tab and try to expand the file structure, it will take so long to display the structure that it will time out and fail. It makes me wonder if I’m going to be able to do a restore with one of those tapes. I have tested some of them with success, but if Veeam/SQL can't even display the contents of the tape successfully is it going to struggle with actually restoring? (rhetorical question).

Sending a tape to the Free media pool is usually slow, moving a tape to a Vault is often slow, sometimes just marking a tape as protected is slow.

My SQL database is on a remote server (same datacenter, 10 gb link). It used to be on the same server as the B&R server but support had us move it off to fix a different problem. I think it was slow even then.

I come from a NetBackup world where working with working with media was much quicker. So this surprises me.

Support couldn't fix it so I'm not looking for a fix. Just looking to see if anyone else has experienced this.

Thanks,
Steve

[HannesK]

Hello,
the current "file to tape" engine is built for a few large (backup) files.

We have some large file backups to tape of CIFS shares that are up to 7 TB large with millions of files.

using file-to-tape with millions of files is expected to be slow, yes (it was never designed for that). It was improved a bit over time (make sure that you are at least on V11), but the real speed improvement will only happen in V12.

so I'm not looking for a fix.

even if you don't want a fix, we plan to fix it in V12

Best regards,
Hannes

[AKcongo]

Thanks HannesK,

I thought this issue was to be addressed in v12 but support seemed unaware of anything pertaining to this particular issue. Yes, files to tape has improved hugely through the versions since we started with Veeam.

And oh yes, I want a fix. I just wasn't looking for one here. I was wondering if I was the only one experiencing this, that perhaps it was something with my environment.

Thanks again.

[HannesK]

Hello,
as I cannot find the case number, I cannot see what the support ticket was about, so hard to say... in general, the job of support is fixing things. Roadmap explanations are not really their task, which might be the reason

Best regards,
Hannes

[AKcongo]

Thanks Hannes,

What I meant about not looking for a fix was that I'm not looking for a fix in the forums. I was just wondering if anyone else had experienced this. If it's only me then it's probably something with my environment.

I did go to support for a fix. I sent in a copy of my database and she reproduced the problem. No answers, tho. Next she wanted me to install Veeam onto the database server and test. I'm not interested in doing that because if she was able to reproduce the problem then it may not be my environment. Also, I used to have my B&R and SQL on the same server and was advised by support to move SQL off the server to fix a different problem. So I'm not too keen on moving SQL back even if the behavior improves. I think it was still impossible to see all the files on the tape of a large file backup.

Case number was 05332367 if you're curious.

This problem isn't killing anything. Functionality hasn't really been affected (except for viewing files on tape and it takes Veeam 4 minutes to move a tape in a media pool to Free, and other tape interface slowness) although I'm concerned that if Veeam can't display lots of files on tape maybe it can't restore lots of files from tape. My testing hasn't indicated that that's the case, however.

Perhaps there's a registry setting that allows all the files to be displayed? A buffer setting that needs to be increased? One of my peers mentioned that but couldn't remember for sure.

So I'll wait for v12 and hope for improvements.

Thanks for your help.
Steve

[HannesK]

Hello,
looking at the case and the size of your database, I would say "looks expected for V11" and should work fine in V12.

Best regards,
Hannes

[AKcongo]

Thanks Hannes, I appreciate your time.

Steve