Creating Backup file on alternate PC

When I create a backup on another PC (running XP Home) that I have networked in the house, it takes 20 hours to create a 200GB file on the backup PC. The "system" process takes about 100% of the CPU trying to write out the file with constant disk IO, but the originating PC (with True Image) is just at 5% utilization. I suspect the answer is to install a server OS on the alternate machine, but it would be nice to get a server process on that machine that would manage this as part of True Image.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

 

I did a test and found it took 13 min to backup a 4.3GB image (actual compressed size of data transferred, not partition size). Applying this rate to your 200GB of data it would have taken 10hrs roughly. A straight windows file copy to the machine would have taken about 5.8hrs for 200GB based on my transfer time of 9.5MB/s on a 100Mbs network.

Have you tried disabling any firewalls and anti-virus in case they are getting in the way? My firewalls added about 12% onto a straight file transfer of a 650MB file.

 

Good point, I will try disabling these to see if it makes a difference. Thanks again for the idea!

 

That's around 3 MB/sec. How fast does your network copy a large file from computer A to B? Seekforever has a good transfer rate.