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Backup Speed
Version
5.0.1.0
Jan 2006
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I’m backed up.com LLC v5.0
Whitepaper – Backup speed
Page 2 of 6
Table of Content
1
Introduction...................................................................................................3
2 Testing
Configuration and
Setup..................................................................4
2.1
Hardware and Software
Setup...........................................................4
2.2 Test
Scenarios...................................................................................4
3 Results
.........................................................................................................5
3.1
Upload
Time.......................................................................................5
3.2
Observations......................................................................................5
3.3
Conclusion
.........................................................................................6
committed to the success of your business
I’m backed up.com LLC v5.0
Whitepaper – Backup speed
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1 Introduction
This document contains results of the test on backup
speeds for the backup operation between
I’m Backedup.com Offsite Backup Server (OBS) and I’m
Backedup.com Online Backup Manager (OBM). It serves as
a
reference for partners and customers in planning their
hardware and network capacity.
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Whitepaper – Backup speed
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2 Testing Configuration and Setup
2.1 Hardware and Software Setup
The list of hardware and software is shown in the
following table.
Hardware Software
Backup Server
(Backup destination)
-
Intel Xeon 2.8GHz
CPU
-
2GB ram
-
RedHat Enterprise
Linux AS4
-
I’m Backedup.com Offsite Backup
Server v.5.0.1.4
Client Workstation
(Backup source)
-
Intel Pentium Dual-
Core CPU 3.2 GHz
-
2GB ram
-
Windows 2003 Server
-
I’m Backeup.Com Online Backup
Manager v.5.0.1.4
2.2 Test Scenarios
Overview
In the test, there are 4 file backup sets, each contains
files of different numbers and sizes as
described in the following table.
File Backup
Set
Average
file size
Total
number of
files
Number of
folders
Total Size
(GB)
Compressed
Size (GB)
Small-files 2Kb 1903685 1007 2.45 1.96
Medium-files 200Kb 10000 1010 2.38 1.90
Large-files 20Mb 100 10 2.44 1.95
Huge-files 200Mb 10 1 2.44 1.95
Test Cases
All the 4 backup sets are with the following settings:
�
Transfer block size is 128 Kb
�
“In-File Delta” option is turned off
�
Encryption is enabled (AES – CBC mode).
We have tested with different network bandwidths
(uplink) for each of the backup set. The network
constraint was achieved by limiting the bandwidth of the
particular backup account with the following
assumptions:
1. ADSL and SDSL have a down/up bandwidth up to
1.5Mbps/640Kbps and 2Mbps/2Mbps
respectively. From trace route, they have gone through
12 routers/networks before reaching
the Backup Server.
2. T1 has a bandwidth up to 1.544Mbps.
3. LAN has a bandwidth up to 100Mbps.
4. The average compression ratio of the files is only
80%.
And the results are outlined in the next section.
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3 Results
3.1 Upload Time
The time required for the backup operations with
different network bandwidth are summarized
below:
Test Case Network Bandwidth
(down/up)
Actual /
Compressed
Size (GB)
Time taken
(HH:MM:SS)
Transfer rate
(MB/min)
ADSL
(1.5Mbps/640Kbps)
2.45 / 1.96 15:12:17 2.2
SDSL
(2Mbps/2Mbps)
2.45 / 1.96 05:22:41 6.22
T1 2.45 / 1.96 05:22:09 6.23
Small-files
(2Kb)
LAN 2.45 / 1.96 05:21:38 6.24
ADSL
(1.5Mbps/640Kbps)
2.38 / 1.90 13:04:31 2.48
SDSL
(2Mbps/2Mbps)
2.38 / 1.90 04:23:38 7.38
T1 2.38 / 1.90 03:10:22 10.22
Medium-files
(200Kb)
LAN 2.38 / 1.90 00:49:37 39.21
ADSL
(1.5Mbps/640Kbps)
2.44 / 1.95 13:12:23 2.52
SDSL
(2Mbps/2Mbps)
2.44 / 1.95 04:29:07 7.42
T1 2.44 / 1.95 03:05:14 10.78
Large-files
(20Mb)
LAN 2.44 / 1.95 00:31:24 63.6
ADSL
(1.5Mbps/640Kbps)
2.44 / 1.95 13:38:22 2.44
SDSL
(2Mbps/2Mbps)
2.44 / 1.95 04:25:11 7.53
T1 2.44 / 1.95 03:12:11 10.39
Huge-files
(200Mb)
LAN 2.44 / 1.95 00:59:57 33.31
3.2 Observations
For a backup set with a large number of small files,
there is not much improvement in the backup
speed even though the bandwidth has been increased. The
bottleneck is thus on client workstation
where the files are being processed and encrypted.
For a backup set with an average number of medium-sized
files, increasing the uplink bandwidth
does improve the backup speed by a significant amount.
This reflects that, with lesser number of
files, the bottleneck is switched to the network
instead. In other words, the larger the number of files,
the more processing is required on the OBM machine.
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And for a backup set with smaller number of large files,
similar patterns are observed. Namely, the
backup speed is significantly improved when the uplink
bandwidth is increased.
3.3 Conclusion
The time required for a backup (or backup speed) depends
very much on the backup set’s
constitution. Other than uploading a large number of
files (over 2 million files) in a single backup,
network latency is the major constraint on the backup
speed.
In general, for a large number of small files (e.g. File
system backup), the uplink bandwidth is
relatively less important as the stress would be on the
CPU of the source machine. In this case, a
more powerful OBM machine could improve the backup
speed. On the other hand, with smaller
number of big files (e.g. MS Exchange, MS SQL backups),
the available uplink bandwidth would
have bigger impact on the overall backup speed.
At the planning stage, system administrators should
choose the most cost-effective bandwidth in
their situations. Following are some of the factors that
they might need to consider:
Type
of backups
�
Anticipated data volume
�
Backup frequency
�
Performance criteria
�
Budget constraints
�
Trade off between performance and costs
�
Expected growth in data volume |
