Any rule of thumb - how long should it take to backup x GB over USB? Cat 5? Cat 6?

At a friend's house, I am trying to use TI 11 home to backup 30 GB of data over a 10/100 network to a NAS in the basement. Anyone have rules of thumb as to how long that should take? It's taking hours and people are turning off the PC. I guess tell them to leave it on. But after several hours, it's at 20% for a long time (after being at 19% for a while also).

I'd be curious how long it takes to backup with different methods.

 

Some tests I did a while back with TI9 running in Windows making an archive to a drive on a networked PC showed:

330MB/min of archive file on a 100Mbps connection.
760MB/min " " 1000Mbps "
1430MB/min to an internal HD on the same machine.

If you assume the NAS speed is the same as the HD on a networked PC, (is this a valid assumption?) then your 30GB archive would take about 90 minutes on a 100Mbps connection.

General rule of thumb for non-network archive creation in Windows is 1GB/min. For modern PCs, a HD to HD archive will be faster than that and USB2 is typically a bit slower. The TI linux rescue CD usually results in at best the same and usually 2-3X slower. USB2 has a theoretical throughput of 480Mbps which is almost 5X that of your 100Mbps network connection. Both these numbers are theoretical though!

If you are doing this with the TI rescue (Linux) CD then times could easily be longer depending on the driver suitability.

 

90 min, That's the transfer speed across the cable right? Or the time from when you start the task to when it's finished? (there's more time in building the TIB on the machine / scanning what needs to be backed up, etc, right? Cause I am faced with 30 GB taking 4 - 5 hours and not finishing before someone turns the PC off (to do the initial full backup).

this is a 1 year old Dell XPS w/ 2 GB of RAM (the hard drive is 100 GB, but there's 30 GB of files) that's running fine. the total size of the hard drive doesn't matter, right? Just what's being used is the issue?.

 

Since you are backing up from Windows, you can test the speed easily. Just copy a 1GB or 2GB file (approx. size is okay) and time it. This will tell you how long it takes to transfer the file. You should get the same speed from TI. The network is so slow than nothing else (compression, etc.) is going to slow it further once the backup transfer has started.

If possible, consider upgrading to a 1000Mbps network, especially if the NAS device supports that speed. The computer probably already supports it if it's only a year old so you may only need a new switch or router.

Since you're using a 10/100 network, have you verified that each device is connected at 100Mbps (most devices have status lights)? If something is connecting at 10Mbps, that's slower than USB 1 speeds.

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Normally, only the used space is backed up.

 

I think the times are when I hit the Proceed button to create the archive to when it said finished. Yes, if you are doing a normal image it only does the 30GB not the whole partition. If you are doing a sector-by-sector or whatever they call it, then the whole 100 would be done.

TI doesn't really build the tib on the machine and then transfer it when it is complete, it builds and transfers as it goes.

My times are for doing an image backup, not a data backup where you can select the Files and Folders. This would be slower because it uses the Windows file system. Images are indeed faster.

 

My tests indicate a Windows copy of a 4.6GB file is about twice as fast as letting TI create a 4.6GB file over the network in Windows. I presume that this is because of optimization for the copy process rather than fooling with bits of the file while it is created and time taken to compress but I don't really know.

Creating an uncompressed archive on the PC, a 2.8GHz P4, results in a higher throughput over the network (1Gbps) of about 10% but you lose overall because much more data has to be sent over the network so the Normal compressed archive time is shorter.

 

I should have said that it would be the maximum speed you would get. On my computers, TI operations are limited by the connection (network, USB, etc.) and not by the CPU, controller, etc. I usually get the same speeds with TI that I get doing file copies in Windows.

 

seek: sorry if I am slow. you are saying 4.6 copied 'over network' via windows is 2x as fast as 4.6 sent using TI?

That's my point - TI does add some amount of time compared to drag and drop to the NAS, right? I am trying to identify how long that extra time is (as a % of files?).

Please check my thinking - again, 30 GB going to a nas as an image (backup wizard, my computer, disks and partitions (which DOES get the system state, right?) check the disk1 that I want imaged, don't bother excluding any files, choose the shared folder on the nas, choose incremental (which will make a full if there's no incremental already, right?) .....although now on this other machine it is balking at an incremental because full doesn't exist? What just happened? I always was chosing incremental at this point and it didn't balk!?

 

Yes, it has to add some time because it is doing a lot of work to assemble the archive data, send it, assemble some more, send it, ... A copy just opens the file and fires it across the network and given all the copying that is done in Windows, it probably is a well optimized bit of code. A network copy is slower than an internal disk to disk copy because of the network hardware speed and the fact there is a lot more overhead using the network protocol compared to setting up a DMA transfer between internal disks.

If you make an image of your disk1 with no file exclusion then you have everything. This is how I do things, I don't fool with SystemState or other clever things but I'm always doing internal disk to internal disk images which I then copy selected ones using Windows to wherever else I want them such as USB or sometimes over my network to a shared folder.

Ti is supposed to make a full if it doesn't exist when an incremental backup is selected. I really don't know what happened.

 

Thanks again!

you said:

it has to add some time because it is doing a lot of work to assemble the archive data, send it, assemble some more, send it, ...

I just checked that pc with 30 GB to backup and it's at 21%. CHeck the timestamp of this message vs. my earlier one (i started it at that earlier timestamp so it's been running that many hours!

any thoughts on how much is 'some time' ?

 

Based on what I've measured, on my 2.8Ghz P4, it looks like it very roughly doubles the time over a straight Windows copy.

If you haven't done so, I think you should retreat a bit. What we want to know is how long does it take to create an image on your PC without the network or NAS in the picture.

Have you measured how long it takes to make an image of your 30GB onto a HD, either internal or external. Ideally, if you don't have an external or second physical drive, you make an image to another partition on the same drive. If this is not possible, you can create an image of C on C if there is enough space. You will get a warning you can't restore that image but just ignore it and let it create the archive.

After the image is created, how long to copy it to the NAS?

The total of these times is as fast as you will ever hope to get when creating the image to the NAS unless something changes.

BTW, do you have the latest drivers, if any, for your NAS device?

 

the nas is a buffalo linkstation. I don't think there's drivers for that?

in looking at the machine closer, I see 2 big issues (I think they are big... your thoughts?).

it's a laptop that never moves from the desk. remotely checking it, it says the cat 5 NIC is unplugged - it's doing this wirelessly.

and I was wrong, it's not 30 GB of data.... it's 70+GB... and it's an 80 GB hard drive. so there's virtually no free space on the hard drive for temp work that TI likely wants to do.

so I have to retreat and get a bigger hard drive in there and get them to plug in the cat 5 data cable! then see what happens!

 

I just looked at "buffalo linkstation" and didn't see any reference to wireless on the units. Are you sure it is running wireless and what model is it?

If it is cabled and the PC is showing a disconnected cable you may have a NIC problem. I had one giving that message with everything connected and it was a bad NIC.

Not sure what TI wants in the way of temporary space and I don't think that is your problem but....

Another thing, if it is wireless and the signal is weak or has interference for any reason the actual operating speed can be considerably less than the theoretical 54Mbps for G networking.

Does your version of TI support wireless? Some of the older ones didn't. If you get this working, you are going to have to give it a very careful test with the TI recovery CD to ensure you can restore an image if required.

 

there's a wireless router . the buffalo is hard wired. and so should the laptop! : )

very little free space may not be a ti issue, but windows does slow down with minimal free hard disk space.


I am using ti home 11. for a restore, we would certainly connect a data cable, not use wireless

 

Actually 480Mbits/sec (60MBytes/sec) is the burst speed, average USB 2.0 throughput is more like 3 MB or as high as 10-20MB.sec, even slower than Firewire.



FireWire uses a "Peer-to-Peer" architecture in which the peripherals are intelligent and can negotiate bus conflicts to determine which device can best control a data transfer while USB 2.0 uses a "Master-Slave" type of architecture in which the computer handles all arbitration and controls data flow to/from peripherals, which add system overhead and slows data flow control.

Of course, network throughput on 100Mbps (12 MB/sec) is something slower than that too, allowing for overhead, etc.