vSphere 4.1 NBD backup speed?

[Mindflux]

Did VMware make improvements to vSphere 4.1's APIs? I'm seeing a 40% improvement in backup speed (full backup) from 4.0.

Two weeks ago I loaded VEEAM v5 up and did a full backup of my production VM's (about 440GB) and it took 4.5 hours (ish) and that was with deduping.

This weekend I FINALLY upgraded to vSphere 4.1 and for good measure I did a full backup this evening. The same VM's backed up (only slightly larger with 2 weeks of growth) backed up in just under 2hr 30m. (2:28 to be precise).

Nothing else changed other than the host was restarted for 4.1 update.

[Alexey D.]

Hello Ryan,

Yes, for release 4.1 VMware announced significant improvements in field of performance:
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpap ... rmance.pdf
This paper tells more.

[Gostev]

No real improvements, just finally fixed an issue they introduced in ESX 4.0
Network backup slow on vSphere ESX 4.0

[Mindflux]

Shoot, I should have upgraded months ago.