Backup Copy - Merging oldest incremental - really slow

[TGacs]

9.5 Update 1
Backup Copy target: iSCSI RDX Quikstation

19 VMs were backed up in about 2 hrs (source total: approx 2TB)

But the Backup Copy job has been running the following for 8+ hours so far:

5/16/2017 2:41:32 AM :: Merging oldest incremental backup into full backup file (94% done)

Q1: This is the first time most of these VMs have been added to the backup copy set. Will future backup copys not have such a long merge time?

Q2: If it will still be a long time each time, should I consider using 2 backup jobs (one to local destination, one to RDX destination) rather than a Backup job + Backup Copy job?

[foggy]

You can switch to active fulls mode to avoid synthetics (merge), since this seems to be what the storage is not good at.

[TGacs]

Hmm, when I select the RDX device as the destination, the options "Keep the following restore points as full backups for archival purposes" and all entries below it, including "Read the entire restore point from source backup instead of synthesizing it from increments", are greyed out.

Is this due to this repository device being labeled as "removable"? If so, then there does not appear to be a way to do Active Full backup copy, other than manually initiating it (right-click on job, choose Active Full).

That seems an odd restriction.

[foggy]

It is disabled in case you're using the rotated drives option. Is it the case?

[TGacs]

Yes...the RDX target is set up as backed by rotated drives.

[foggy]

Then another way to avoid synthetics is cleaning up the repository prior to running the job.