Pathetic speeds on partition restore

Hello,

I m cruely disappointed by restoring speeds, which was 2MB/s in average, by doing restore of almost full 64GB partition it took around 9hours (!!!!) from differential backup. While backing up (diff) the same partition took about an 1.5 hour (max compression). I don't wee a reason for such a slow progress since decompression always is faster than compression....terrible speed

 

My restores usually take around the same time as the backup.

Were you doing a file level restore ? They can be slow. Normal image restore is much faster.

 

Are you doing from differential backups?

Since that makes the difference.
It can be seen on verify backup integrity task too.
Normal image goes relative fast (up to 1hr), while differential image goes very very slow (around 9hrs). Although it may take an extra time to synthetize with base image, it can't be 9x slower !!! And it's CPU what is exhausted, not the drive.

 

You can tell if you're doing a file-level restore as opposed to a sector level restore when file listings are scrolling as you restore. This indicates that either the original container of the backup is larger than the target container, or during the restore wizard, you expanded the partition to restore at a file-level.

From testing, file-level restore goes about 5x slower than sector restore. Of course your bus-speed also effects this.

 

I don't think so, the partition matches size exactly and restore in default mode, backup is not raw sector. I don't know what you mean file-level restore.

 

A file-level restore would mean that the archive is restored by looking at each file individually, as opposed to simply restoring the data sector-by-sector, as Tommy mentioned, this is required when restoring an image to a smaller disk.

However, you mentioned that this is a differential backup, this could definitely be the cause of the poor performance.

Is the base image and the differential image in the same storage location?

How large is the differential compared to the base image?

 

Then it wasnot file-level restore.

Yes the base and differential are in the same folder (USB HDD)
Approximate sizes were ~25 GB(base) and 5-15 GB(diff), don't remember yet

Is the difference in restoral speed between regular and diff backup really so big?
IMO this makes this otherwise useful solution almost unusable for effective restoral as it takes almost half a day with average CPU.

here is the script to generate the differential image, if there's something causing the restoral so slow please give me to know

Code:

// Differential system backup
// Time of creation: Tue Mar 02 12:26:53 2010

// Settings block
settings
	surfacetest off
	verify off
	copyonetoone off
	hddrawprocess off
	allow64kcluster off
	donothidetarget on
	copyinsteadofmove off
	bigdrives off
	compressionlevel 2
	sidafterdisk off
	sidafterpartition off
	defaultsidchanger on
	nodellabel off
	timeshift 60
	oemcodepage 852
	timezone 24
	langnumber 8
	slavecfg off
	notforslave off
	enablerestart on
	enablevirtualdb on
	autoconverttofat32 on
	sidparams ""
	hotbackup lockimpossible
	tempdrive Y
	vss2hbswitch on
	vssattempts 4
	vsstimeout 120
endsettings

confirm off

// Backup
img = "Y:/backup/img_0_$(YEAR)_$(MONTH)_$(DAY)_$(HOUR)_$(MINUTE).PBF"
select first track 0
options
	cmp = 2
	pwd = "**********"
	label = "Scheduled System Backup - HDD First Track $(DAY).$(MONTH).$(YEAR) $(HOUR):$(MINUTE):$(SECOND)"
	autonames
	hotbackup lockimpossible
	tempdrive Y
	usevss
store

call check_error

// Backup
img = "Y:/backup/diff_1_$(YEAR)_$(MONTH)_$(DAY)_$(HOUR)_$(MINUTE).pbf"
base = "Y:/backup/img_1.pbf"
select disk 0
select partition primary 0
options
	cmp = 2
	pwd = "**********"
	notempfiles
	label = "Scheduled System Backup - Windows System Volume $(DAY).$(MONTH).$(YEAR) $(HOUR):$(MINUTE):$(SECOND)"
	autonames
	base_pwd = "**********"
	hotbackup lockimpossible
	tempdrive Y
	usevss
	exclude = "C:/Users/Anakunda/AppData/Local/Temp/"
	exclude = "C:/Windows/Temp/"
	exclude = "C:/Users/Anakunda/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary Internet Files/"
	exclude = "C:/Users/Anakunda/AppData/Local/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/nupqji1i.default/Cache/"
	exclude = "C:/Users/Anakunda/AppData/Local/Opera/Opera/cache/"
	exclude = "C:/Users/Anakunda/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User Data/Default/Cache/"
	exclude = "C:/Users/Anakunda/AppData/Local/Apple Computer/Safari/Cache.db"
	exclude = "C:/Program Files (x86)/Direct Connect/FileLists/"
	exclude = "C:/Users/Anakunda/Application Data/Adobe/Common/Media Cache Files/"
	exclude = "C:/$RECYCLE.BIN/"
	exclude = "C:/MSOCache/"
	exclude = "C:/ProgramData/Microsoft/Search/Data/Temp/"
	exclude = "C:/Users/Default/AppData/Local/Temp/"
	exclude = "C:/Users/Anakunda/Local Settings/Microsoft/Windows/Explorer/thumbcache*.db"
	exclude = "C:/Users/Anakunda/AppData/Roaming/XnView/XnView.db"
	exclude = "C:/ProgramData/Apple/Installer Cache/"
	exclude = "C:/ProgramData/Apple Computer/Installer Cache/"
	exclude = "C:/Users/Anakunda/AppData/Local/CrashDumps/"
store

call check_error

// Merge archives into one archive
img = "Y:/backup/backup_$(YEAR)_$(MONTH)_$(DAY)_$(HOUR)_$(MINUTE).pbf"
img = "Y:/backup/img_0_$(YEAR)_$(MONTH)_$(DAY)_$(HOUR)_$(MINUTE).pbf"
img = "Y:/backup/diff_1_$(YEAR)_$(MONTH)_$(DAY)_$(HOUR)_$(MINUTE).pbf"
options
	label = "Backed up on $(DAY).$(MONTH).$(YEAR) $(HOUR):$(MINUTE):$(SECOND)"
store complex

call check_error
apply all
call check_error

// Function for checking error
check_error:
	if (errorcode(1) != 0)
	then
		print "Some error occured: "
		strerror(errorcode(1))
		print ""
		print "Exiting"
		print ""
		exit(errorcode(1))
	endif
endcall

thanks

 

Greetings,

performed another restore from differential image today which confirmed the slowness reported in first post.

Here are today's results:

Partition size: 64 GB
Effective data to restore excluding OS auxilioary files: 48.9 GB
Used devices:
source: USB2 external SATA-II @ Oxford 7200RPM 32MB cache
target: SATA-II 5400RPM 8MB cache
Total restore time: 8h16m
Restore kernel used: at bluescreen
Average restoral speed: ~5.9 GB/h (ie. 1.68 MB/s)
CPU: Intel C2D 2.2 GHz

Check of the same image under Windows took less than 1hr

Could more users or Paragon techs post their results to see if this speed is normal?

 

It's not normal.


Paragon should always be quicker than Windows System image.

I would expect 48.9gb to take between 35 and 45 minutes, depending on your machine.

 

hmm then there's something odd.
I would say so since the average (differential) backu of the same partition takes between 75-90 minutes
I am using password to protect, does this matter?
Tha backup drive average speed is less than 35MB/s due to USB2 lmiitations, but this shouldnot matter.
The compression is set to high.

Any diagnostics to find the culprit?