September 25, 2012 at 4:39 pm
I'm backing up terrabytes of production databases over a network.
My transfer rates are fluctuating between 3 Mbps to 20 Mbps using Lightspeed.
I have 32-bit SQL Server 2000 production servers backing up to a 64-bit file server on a gigabit connection.
Is there any way I can increase my network i/o throughput without having to update my production to 64-bit ?
TIA,
Tony
September 25, 2012 at 4:45 pm
If you're writing to a single backup file, you might see some improvement by writing to multiple files. At some point you may reach the max for your disks before you reach the max for your network connection. Do you know what the target disks are supposed to support?
September 25, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Target discs are on a large appliance where disc I/O is not an issue. I have lots of capacity on the write; other transactions are occurring and completing. The problem is getting the backup data from the SQL2k there, faster.
I have noticed the 12gigs of Ram on the target server, maxing, during the backups. I suspect its slowing down the transfer because its "full", but I don't know, just guessing.
I think its maxing (and paging) because the backed up databases being sent to it, are 10+ gigs large, and it has to capture it all, before/as it writes it to disc.
You know, maybe that's my problem. My network I/O goes up to 20 Mbps when nothing else is talking to the target server, but drops to like 3 Mbps when other servers start unloading on it. Again, its writing it all, but maybe the network I/O is dropping because the server is out of RAM to take on more.
Disk I/O has always been slightly faster than Network I/O, while memory is pegged.
Can anyone concur or rebuke my speculations?
Thanks,
Tony
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