Concerned about NetWare 5's backup performance.

Articles and Tips: qna

01 Sep 1999

Dear Ab-end: I'm working with a customer who is concerned about NetWare 5's backup performance. The scenario has the following equipment: A Compaq Proliant 6000 server with DLT 7000 Quantum hard drive running NetWare 5.0 with SP2. The backup program is ARCserve IT 6.6 with all patches. All upgrades available from Compaq have been applied to the server and the hard drive. Even with all of the patches, their backup performance is very slow, especially when compared to some competitors out there. Could someone help me?

—Back a Step

Dear Step: Wayne L. Snyder of Novell Consulting writes: "Cheyenne has a fix for the problem you described. Try making the following addition to tapesvr.cfg file located in the \ARCserve.6\nlm subdirectory.

[CONFIG]
BLOCKSIZE=x

where x is

0 = 512 bytes
1 = 1024 bytes
2 = 2048 bytes
3 = 4096 bytes
4 = 8192 bytes
5 = 16384 bytes
** 6 = 32748 bytes
** 7 = 65530 bytes

"This information comes from Cheyenne. The URL of the Cheyenne reference is http://support.cai.com/techbases/as61/10015.html. The title of their document is "Increasing Throughput and Performance of Backups", document 10015 dated April 23, 1999."

Ahmad Sadeghpour of Novell ESC Germany further writes, "When you are discussing backup performance with ARCserve and NetWare, reading Novell's Technical Information Document (TID) #2937318 is a must. Furthermore, the following information can also help:

Make sure that ARCserve is using memory above 16 MB (which may not be true in your case). You set this parameter in the ASCONFIG.INI file.
Make sure in your configuration that no DOS device is being loaded.
Apply the NetWare 5 Service Pack 2A on the server, as this has a new SMDR.NLM (which is also included in NetWare 5 Service Pack 3).
With these procedures in place, encourage the customer to retest BACKUPEXEC. With these hints, I found that I could improve the performance of the backup process on a NetWare 4.11 server from 30 MB to nearly 300 MB, which is almost the limitation of DLT 7000.
Increase Directory Cache Buffer to 4000, the more DCBs, the faster the backup process.
Check also TID #2930041. Again, TID #2937318 is a must read."

* Originally published in Novell AppNotes

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The origin of this information may be internal or external to Novell. While Novell makes all reasonable efforts to verify this information, Novell does not make explicit or implied claims to its validity.