By Rob Cosgrove
CEO, Remote Backup Systems Inc
This article describes the reasons RBS software can appear to run slowly, or not at all, caused by issues unrelated to the software. If your software is running slowly, please read this article. It contains caveats about the proper use of our software as the phrase “proper use” is used in our Software License Agreement.
Overview
All software has its limits. Often, limits are imposed by the computers themselves, the speed or fragmentation of the hard drives, the speed of the network connection, other programs running at the same time, the number of files selected for backup, and more.The lower your bandwidth (client or server) the slower files will transfer.
Internet Connection
Most Internet connections have a high downlink speed, but a slow uplink speed. Cable companies and ISPs often sell Internet connections by telling you how fast their downlink speed is, often ignoring or failing to mention that the uplink speed is only a fraction of the faster downlink speed.
For example, the ASDL line I have at my home was advertised as a very high speed line - “3MB”, three megabits. That’s quite fast, and it allows my kids to download movies faster than they can watch them. However, the uplink speed (the speed that matters to online backup) is only 384K - about 1/10 the speed of that very high speed ASDL line.
It takes 2.7 hours to transmit a single gigabyte over a 1.53mb connection (T1). Upload speeds for Internet connections commonly used by the clients of Remote Backup services are often as low as 128K ( 1/12 the speed of a T1). At 128K, it might take 32 hours to transmit one gigabyte.
RBS Client software (and ALL remote backup software) sends data over the slow uplink, while the RBS Server receives data on its high speed downlink. Data will be transmitted no faster than the slowest speed between the two computers, usually the client’s uplink speed.
Most Internet connections do not have the stable full-time bandwidth they are advertised to have. For example, cable modems share bandwidth with others in the neighborhood. So, when neighbors are downloading movies or music, listening to Internet radio, watching podcasts, or doing Remote Backups, the bandwidth in the entire neighborhood will suffer.
RBS has no control over the speed of the Internet. It simply takes as long as it takes to send a file, regardless the type of software doing the backups.
The more files you try to back up, the longer it will take. The larger the files, the more time it will take.
RBS client software prepares files for backup before sending them. RBackup by RBS is the most secure online backup software available. RBackup takes great care to make sure that files are properly packaged and secured before sending them to the RBS Server. That’s why in the entire history of our company (founded in 1987) our software has never lost a file.
RBackup must extract changes from files, compress, and encrypt. It must verify the files and digitally sign them after encryption. It must account for possible bad hard drive sectors and incorrect directories. It must maintain its local data store for quick restores.
Because RBackup digitally signs its files (unlike our competitors) and verifies the signatures on transfer to the Server, RBackup handles a few large files faster than it does many small files.
No other software is as reliable or as secure as RBackup - It is true that some software that doesn’t have the security and reliability of RBackup may prepare files faster. However, we think you would rather have something as important as backups done right instead of quick.
Slow computers, low available RAM, and low available hard drive space can result in slow or missed backups.
RBackup was designed to run with slow computers, low ram, and low hard drive space. However, no software can do the impossible. For example, RBackup will not do a BitBackup backup on a large data set if the drive used for the local Data Store is extremely low on space. RBackup needs room for temporary files, and for the local Data Store. Turn off BitBackup if a computer is low on resources.
RBackup may run slowly, or not at all, if the computer has a low amount of available RAM and/or a small amount of unused hard drive space, or a seriously fragmented drive. It is unreasonable to ask RBackup or any other software to back up a hundreds of thousands of small files on a slow computer with limited RAM and critically low hard drive space. Limit the number of files you select for backup, and turn off BitBackup.
Don’t back up entire drives.
This might seem obvious to most people. However, RBS receives many tech support calls from people complaining that a backup takes “forever”, and after a few questions, we find out that they have selected the entire C drive for backup.
RBackup was not designed to be used to back up entire drives - only the files that need to be backed up.
The computer I’m using to write this article is a fairly standard high-performance desktop computer. Its C drive is 160GB. I have 41GB of files on it, a standard mix of documents, pictures, music, and personal files that might be found on any computer after a couple of years of daily use. I use this computer for my work, and it gets heavier use than most.
Of the 41GB of files I have on my drive, most are operating system files, application files, old outdated downloads that I no longer need, the Recycle Bin, and old programs I no longer use but haven’t uninstalled. The operating system files and the application files can be re-loaded, if lost, from the original CDs. So, they don’t need to be backed up. I’d be wasting time and money. Do you want to back up your recycle bin? I don’t. On the typical computer, there are many gigabytes of files that simply don’t need to be there any more, and CERTAINLY don’t need to be backed up.
There are (exactly, because I’ve counted) only 4GB of files that need to be backed up. These files are Word and Excel files, Power Point, accounting, my blog, an unfinished novel, and a some music and pictures. These files are in specific directories, mostly in My Documents and My Pictures, like most people.
Of the 4GB of files that need to be backed up, most are music and pictures that never change, and so they only need to be backed up once.
So, what’s the actual amount of data that might be backed up daily because these are the files that change from day to day? Again, I counted. Out of the 41GB of data on my drive, only 30MB (megabytes) changes from day to day. RBackup can back that up in about 4 minutes. Results may vary.
If I selected my entire Drive C to back up, RBackup would not refuse to back it up. It would try its best to back up the 41GB of files I have stored on there. However, even though my computer has 8GB of RAM, a quad-core processor, lots of spare drive space, and a 3MB uplink to the Internet, RBackup would need 5 days to prepare the first backup, and 4.3 days to transmit it to the Server.
On the other hand, I can select only the files that need to be backed up, and have the first backup complete in about 2 hours, and my subsequent daily backups complete in 4 minutes.
RBackup contains MANY advanced features to help you select only the files that really need to be backed up. Learn how to use them. Select only the directories containing files that need to be backed up (like My Documents). Use AutoSelect to select files from particular applications. Be reasonable with your file selections.
It takes a while to back up Exchange the right way.
Big Exchange databases, or those with lots of email accounts, may take a long time to prepare for backup. The more email accounts; the bigger the Exchange database; the more complicated the Exchange environment, the longer it will take to complete a backup.
Be aware that a huge Exchange database may take a few days to complete its first backup. Subsequent backups will be much faster. RBackup backs up and restores Exchange while it is in use. So there’s no need to shut down Exchange to back it up or to restore it.
RBackup Remote Backup was designed for small to medium sized data stores. It can handle 300,000 files in a reasonable amount of time. It can finish an Exchange database with 50 mailboxes in a reasonable amount of time. More files or more mailboxes will take more time.
Other software can complete an Exchange database faster than ours. However, they are not doing as thorough a job as we do, and do not save Exchange data in a format that can be easily and quickly restored.
There are many clients using RBackup to store millions of files, and massive Exchange databases with hundreds of mailboxes.
Interference from Other Programs
A running backup session can be slowed down or stopped completely by other programs. For example, if a computer is set to automatically install operating system updates, it may reboot itself automatically. This can interrupt a backup session.
Antivirus and anti-spyware software that updates itself automatically can stop a backup session, and keep it from running the next night, too. For example, if a new virus definition or a new Internet rule is applied through an automatic update, it might interpret RBackup’s Internet activity as spyware, and stop it, presenting a message to the user that he never sees. This can happen night after night if there’s nobody to view the message and allow RBackup to run. Of course RBS can tell you how to solve the problem.
Computers must be turned ON to be backed up.
This may seem obvious. However, RBS has had a number of bitter complaints about our software not working, which have been traced to the fact that the computer simply was not turned on at the time the backup was scheduled to run.
This is especially true of laptop computers, which can run out of batteries, or which the user may simply turn off, forgetting that a backup is scheduled to run. It can also be true of desktop computers and even servers if they shut down because of a glitch in electricity.
Some computers must be logged in to be backed up.
RBackup will run in Services Mode, which means that it WILL run if the computer is not logged in. However, some Service Providers install RBackup in Application Mode, which requires an authorized user to be logged in for RBackup to run. In this case, if a user logs out, or if the computer automatically logs a user out, RBackup will not run. The fix for this is to install RBackup in Services Mode.
Conclusion
Please remember that backups are run at night when nobody is there to watch them. If, while evaluating RBackup, you sit for hours watching a big backup run, you might think there’s something wrong with the software. There isn’t. It’s just doing the job it was programmed to do.
There are MANY ways to optimize RBackup for specific platforms and applications. Please contact RBS for help.
While we will attempt to help you resolve issues unrelated to our software, Remote Backup Solutions is not responsible for problems caused by external events, other software, hardware, or by bandwidth constraints. The caveats in this article define your rights under our Software License Agreement concerning the proper use of our software.