3rd Party Backup Tools

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3rd Party Backup Tools

PhilipC

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January 13, 2019 at 2:39 am

#409431

I realise there have been threads on this in the past, but I thought I'd start a new one as no doubt the tools have moved on.
I have a 4.5TB database that I'm backing up with native SQL backups and it's taking longer and longer. SAN snapshots are out of the question as it's using drives local to the server along with direct attached storage.
Has anyone had much experience with the main 3rd party backup tools? Unfortunately, they don't seem to give any bench marking data.
https://www.idera.com/productssolutions/sqlserver/sqlsafebackup
https://www.red-gate.com/products/dba/sql-backup/
https://www.quest.com/products/litespeed-for-sql-server/

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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Jeffrey Williams SSC Guru Points: 90303 More actions · Answer 1

Are you really still on 2005? If so - then any of the utilities here will be worth the expense - as every one of them can stream the backup into multiple virtual files and compress the data on output to the backup file, reducing the time it takes for the backup and compressing the resulting backup file.

I still use Litespeed on some of my systems - but have moved back to native on my 2012 and higher systems. I have found that the compression and speed are virtually the same as Litespeed unless I use a higher compression setting. If I use the higher compression setting I can save a bit more space - but it takes more time to back up with much higher CPU costs. Using the recommended/standard compression setting for Litespeed, I get the same compression and same speed - but still a higher CPU cost.

Just to give an example - my 3.5TB system backs up to just under 400GB using native backups in about an hour. Using Litespeed with the higher compression - it takes about 1 hour 20 minutes and the backup file is ~380GB. Of course - this is going to be impacted by the storage itself - and how your storage is configured.

Jeffrey Williams
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

― Charles R. Swindoll

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PhilipC Hall of Fame Points: 3124 More actions · Answer 2

No, I'm on SQL 2014.

Wow, that's some impressive storage you have there. Do you mind sharing the results of this query? Below are my results.

   SELECT @@SERVERNAME AS [Server Name] ,
            YEAR(backup_finish_date) AS [Backup Year] ,
            MONTH(backup_finish_date) AS [Backup Month] ,
            CAST(AVG(( backup_size / ( DATEDIFF(ss, bset.backup_start_date, bset.backup_finish_date) ) / 1048576 )) AS INT) AS [Avg MB/Sec] ,
            CAST(MIN(( backup_size / ( DATEDIFF(ss, bset.backup_start_date, bset.backup_finish_date) ) / 1048576 )) AS INT) AS [Min MB/Sec] ,
            CAST(MAX(( backup_size / ( DATEDIFF(ss, bset.backup_start_date, bset.backup_finish_date) ) / 1048576 )) AS INT) AS [Max MB/Sec]
        FROM msdb.dbo.backupset bset
        WHERE bset.type = 'D' /* full backups only */
            AND bset.backup_size > 5368709120 /* 5GB or larger */
            AND DATEDIFF(ss, bset.backup_start_date, bset.backup_finish_date) > 1 /* backups lasting over a second */
        GROUP BY YEAR(backup_finish_date) ,
            MONTH(backup_finish_date)
        ORDER BY @@SERVERNAME ,
            YEAR(backup_finish_date) DESC ,
            MONTH(backup_finish_date) DESC;

alen teplitsky SSC-Dedicated Points: 30014 More actions · Answer 3

I've used Netbackup and Commvault.

used to backup a 6TB database via netbackup to tape. Took 2-3 days for LTO-4

Commvault is nice and has amazing compression. Way better than SQL native compression.

Jeffrey Williams SSC Guru Points: 90303 More actions · Answer 4

This is a physical server in a cluster - the storage is an Enterprise SAN and we have multiple data drives and mount points configured. I also have SQL Server on several VM servers and I am getting close to the same performance (less than 100 MB/sec slower) from the VM farm.

What is your disk layout? How many drives do you have and how are they configured? I would guess that you don't have enough drives and you are maxing out the IO...

Jeffrey Williams
“We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

― Charles R. Swindoll

How to post questions to get better answers faster
Managing Transaction Logs

PhilipC Hall of Fame Points: 3124 More actions · Answer 5

Thanks for that, interesting comparison ! Only have 4 disks in a Raid 5 configuration and yes the IO is being totally maxed out. Server is over 5 years old and really is time to be replaced given the size of the database and limitations on the hardware.

60GB of RAM for a 4.5TB database too. 😐