Super long backup time

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EVermeiren
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2010 7:11 am

Post by EVermeiren »

I installed FBackup4.5 and tried to make my first full backup of the complete system. After 3 hours it indicated the progress status at 95% and started testing. 31 hours later the system was still testing and had only reached 71%. I stopped the backup procedure. The log informed that somewhat more than 100.000 files had been stored and 36 were not.

I checked my external hardisk for the backed up files but could not open the file.
1. is it normal that the initial backup takes that long?

2. how can I check my backed up files?


Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1953
Joined: Thu May 23, 2013 7:57 am

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,
It is not normal for backup to take such a long time on the test phase.

Please send the log file from View->Job Logs->Last backup log to info[at]fbackup[dot]com

Do you know you can monitor your backups remotely with Backup4all Monitor? You can read more here: https://www.backup4all.com/backup4all-monitor.html

EVermeiren
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2010 7:11 am

Post by EVermeiren »

OK.

I will send the log file tonight.


Foxtaur
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:56 pm

Post by Foxtaur »

I am having the same problem described in this post.
I am currently evaluating FBackup. I performed two backups: Mirror and Full Backup.
I am backup up an entire HD, about 50 GB, and backing up to an external USB HD.
The Mirror backup completed in 10 hours, and then the Testing phase completed within 2 hours. Very good. Here is the log:


Backup job "Mirror" at 12/12/2010 2:22:45 AM

Backup:

Total number of files added to backup: 146260
Total number of folders added to backup: 14629
Total size of files added to backup: 50,331,775.75 KB
Number of files excluded: 8
Number of folders excluded: 0
Files skipped: 8
Next scheduled backup:
Backup completed at 12/12/2010 1:14:23 PM with 0 error(s), 8 warning(s)

Test:
Starting test on "Full Backup" for all backup numbers at 12/12/2010 12:20:51 PM
Test finished at 12/12/2010 1:14:23 PM, 146260 file(s) and 14629 folder(s) tested, 0 error(s) and 0 warning(s) found


Now I am running a "Full Backup" which stores files in Zip64 format. The backup completed relatively quickly (7 hours), but now that it is performing the testing phase, it is taking an extremely long time (31 hours so far, to reach 12% complete).
Here are some excerpts from the current running log:


[12/12/2010 4:09:16 PM] Creating the list of files to backup
[...]
[12/12/2010 4:15:48 PM] Folders found to backup: 14,636
[12/12/2010 4:15:48 PM] Files found to backup: 146,372 (50,502,366.13 KB)

[12/12/2010 4:15:59 PM] Preparing shadow copy
[12/12/2010 4:16:22 PM] Shadow copy created.

[12/12/2010 4:16:23 PM] Archiving files to 1_C.zip
[...]
[12/12/2010 11:27:00 PM] Saving backup catalog "{CATALOG_NAME}.fkc"

[12/12/2010 11:28:37 PM] Starting test on "Zip Full Backup" for all backup numbers at 12/12/2010 11:28:37 PM
[12/12/2010 11:29:18 PM] Testing content of zip I:\BACKUPS\Zip Full Backup\1_C.zip
[12/12/2010 11:29:22 PM] AUTOEXEC.BAT OK
[12/12/2010 11:29:26 PM] boot.ini OK
[12/12/2010 11:29:29 PM] CONFIG.SYS OK
[12/12/2010 11:29:33 PM] IO.SYS OK
[12/12/2010 11:29:36 PM] MSDOS.SYS OK`


As you can see, when it starts testing files, it takes a few seconds for each file. This is in contrast to how long it took to archive the files:


[12/12/2010 4:17:01 PM] Added file C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT
[12/12/2010 4:17:01 PM] Added file C:\boot.ini
[12/12/2010 4:17:01 PM] Added file C:\CONFIG.SYS
[12/12/2010 4:17:01 PM] Added file C:\IO.SYS
[12/12/2010 4:17:01 PM] Added file C:\MSDOS.SYS


It took almost no time at all to store these files into the archive, but reading them back out of the archive seems to take some effort.
Reading from the end of the log (the test is still in progress), it appears that it is taking several seconds per file to access each one:


[12/13/2010 6:04:30 PM] Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386\sprb041b.dll OK
[12/13/2010 6:04:37 PM] Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386\sprb0424.dll OK
[12/13/2010 6:04:43 PM] Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386\sprc041b.dll OK
[12/13/2010 6:04:49 PM] Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386\sprc0424.dll OK


I suspect that FBackup may be using some sort of inefficient algorithm in processing the ZIP64 file. Perhaps it closes and reopens the file for every test, or must reread and reparse the ZIP catalog, or it needs to seek/read through the entire ZIP file to find the file and test it. It is not clear to me that it should really take this much time.
I have seen a comment posted here in this forum that "Some drives read much slower than they write," but that really is sort of nonsensical; there is no such drive. At any rate, there was no slow-down in testing the Mirror backup, so I am surprised at the slow performance of the ZIP64 backup.
Since I did not do anything special to set up my backup, I would be surprised if you cannot duplicate this same performance problem in your lab. It seems relatively easy.
At the rate this is going, if I assume 6 seconds to test each file, times 146,372 files backed up, I estimate the testing phase will take around 244 hours (10 days) to complete.


Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1953
Joined: Thu May 23, 2013 7:57 am

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,
I just performed a similar backup test of 52 GB to an external USB drive using FBackup.

The backup + test after backup finished successfully in less than 2 hours.

Do you know you can monitor your backups remotely with Backup4all Monitor? You can read more here: https://www.backup4all.com/backup4all-monitor.html

Foxtaur
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 13, 2010 9:56 pm

Post by Foxtaur »

What would you suggest that I do, in order to duplicate your results?


Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1953
Joined: Thu May 23, 2013 7:57 am

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,
Do you have another external USB drive to test?

Also please make sure there is no antivirus scanning the files during the backup/test.

Do you know you can monitor your backups remotely with Backup4all Monitor? You can read more here: https://www.backup4all.com/backup4all-monitor.html

boblilly
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jan 17, 2011 2:29 am

Post by boblilly »

I have an asus laptop with a 500 gig hd running windows 7. The drive contains about 150 gig of data with slightly over 300,000 files and I am backing up to a 1TB wireless hard drive. Fbackup has been running for 22 hours and has only backed up 39% of the drive. I am using the mirrow backup option. At this rate it will take over 50 hours to backup and I don't know how long to test. Is this normal? How long will it take to back up next time?


boblilly
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jan 17, 2011 2:29 am

Post by boblilly »

It has been about 8 hours since my last posting and fbackup has now backed up 41% of my drive. CPU usage on the computer is running between 0 and 2%. Since it is apparently backing up about 1% every 4 hours I guess I have about 240 more hours to go. That's 10 more days. It appears to be getting slower and slower. It backed up the first 4% in about 2 hours.


Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1953
Joined: Thu May 23, 2013 7:57 am

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,
Please send us the last backup log to info[at]fbackup[dot]com.

You can find it in View->Job Logs->Last backup log.

Do you know you can monitor your backups remotely with Backup4all Monitor? You can read more here: https://www.backup4all.com/backup4all-monitor.html

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