Full backup speed decreases as it runs

[Ratcha]

I had the same experience with the Dynamic Cache Service. No change from the previous 1 - 2 hours of peak speeds followed by 60 hours of 5MB/s.

FYI, I also had very slow speeds when backup up to tape. It would eventually timeout. Not sure if this was the same issue, or another issue between Veeam 7 and Server 2008, but I had to go back to Backup Exec for the tapes. I'll revisit that again once I get 2012 R2 installed.

Great news on the 2008 R2 repository resolving the issue! I'll throw together a 2012 R2 repository and test. Much less work than building an entire backup server for testing. If I get the same positive results I'll upgrade the backup server to 2012 R2.

[Ratcha]

I installed 2012 R2 on a spare server and created an additional repository on it. Created a new backup job for the 2TB VM using the new repository.

The original job takes 62 hours with the 2008 repository. The new job completed in under 6 hours with the 2012 R2 repository.

[modman]

Great news! I am glad it worked for you as well.

Recreating the backup server was not too bad. I just backed up using the configuration backup tool and imported the config afterwards. All the backups used CBT to continue and I didn't even have to re-run a full pass.

[aeccles]

This may not apply to everyone here, but if your target is a VMware VM, make sure you formatted the disk using Thick, Eager zero. Thin, or Lazy Zero will result in a slow down. I spent a lot of time troubleshooting the exact same issue with another backup product and this was the fix. Finding it wad pure luck as highly escalated cases with VMware, Microsoft, and Equallogic didn't go anywhere.

[yizhar]

Hi.

Regarding the last post above about eager zero, I just want to say that I have also experienced similar problems with VMware 5.x and equallogic.
Problems are not specific to backup repository but to any large write to un-zeroed blocks.
for example - deploy template, copy files within guest os, etc...

My workaround was to disable
DataMover.HardwareAcceleratedInit
Set it to 0 in the esxi host configuration (advanced settings). No restart needed.

VMware KB Disabling the VAAI functionality in ESXi-ESX
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=1033665

Yizhar

[winnt]

FINALLY!! A solution to my slow backups!! After upgrading from 2008 to 2008 R2, my backup of 2.2 TB has gone from over three days to just over three hours!! I'll have to let Veeam support in on this little secret. Thanks!