Really Slow Backup - problem with RAID?

I have a system with a RAID 0 array. It is an Intel motherboard with built in RAID. I am using True Image v.11 build 8053. I used the bootable CD to do a backup and it took three hours to make a backup of 10G's of data. I didn't use the sector by sector option and used the normal compression setting (the backup ended up being 5.5G).

I've seen other posts about Intel RAID problems and them not working at all, but nothing about being slow.

I backed up another PC and it plowed through 5G's of data in less than 15 minutes.

Any idea what's going on?

 

Hello Paul_D,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please try booting with "acpi=off noapic" parameter as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

If the issue persists, please collect some information to let us investigate it thoroughly:

Please create Acronis Report, Windows system information and Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post. Please also clarify, which drive are you saving backup to.

Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

Using an Intel ICH7 chipset on my main PC I found this problem too. Support sent me an alternative ISO for the bootable CD which cured the problem.

 

"acpi=off noapic" didn't help, so I've submitted the problem to tech support. Hopefully they come up with something that'll work for me.

 

This may or may not be helpful. I went through a stage some time ago, before using Acronis, of having difficulties with an onboard integrated RAID solution (nVidia chipset) and the recommendation from many people who had also been through the saga was that a dedicated solution is nearly always a better idea.

RAID cards, particularly for home and small office, are relatively cheap. I'm imaging almost 40Gb across two partitions including an image validation in about 40 minutes to an external USB drive and about 70 minutes to the Secure Zone using an Adaptec 1220SA RAID1 with SATA disks. I don't know why the Secure Zone which is on one of the partitions is so much slower but I don't find it a problem.

 

After doing some troubleshooting, it's beginning to look like a problem within my system. I did a backup from my C: drive, which is a partition on my RAID0 array, to another partition on the same array, and it took 8 minutes. This is the same one that takes 3 hours if I backup to the third hard drive in my system, which isn't part of the array.

I've found posts on the Seagate/Maxtor forums about people having the same problem - very slow writing to their SATA II drives. I've compiled a list of suggestions from various people and will be trying them over the next few days as I have time.