Backing Up to Network Share - AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH !!!!!

[snpower]

Sorry - had to scream. Been away from SD for some time as I upgraded my Macbook Pro drive to 250 gigs. Today I received my 1 TB OWC Mercury Elite Pro. It's connected to a Powerbook G4 running Server 10.5.5 and I thought I would be cool and back up the MBP over my LAN. Cripes!! 6.0 mb/s transfer rate; maybe this was a bad idea!! At this speed even incremental backups will be painful - 4.5 hours and counting here.

It's very cool technology though!

[Harold]

6.0 mb/s transfer rate; maybe this was a bad idea!! At this speed even incremental backups will be painful - 4.5 hours and counting here.

6.0 MB/s? Wow, that's about seven times faster than the speed I'm getting! My network backup displayed an effective speed of ~0.85 MB/s today...

It's very cool technology though!

I agree; I really like SuperDuper! I just need to figure out how to make it (or my connection) copy faster! (BTW I saved the log in case I can post/send it in to the developer in order to troubleshoot. Perhaps I need to change my router's settings/set port-forwarding or something?)

My setup:
PowerBook G3 (running Tiger 10.4.11) connected via ethernet to D-Link DI-624 router connected via ethernet to a desktop PC (running WinXP Pro SP3).

What I do:
I mount my XP system using Tiger's SMB/CIFS File System Authentication dialog. (In the "Select the SMB/CIFS shared volume you want to connect to" dialog, I select SharedDocs.) Then I use SuperDuper! Any idea why I'm getting such tremendously slow copy speeds?

[dnanian]

Subsequent copies should be faster, and faster devices copy faster (we're not CPU bound, and we copy as quickly as the system lets us in your situation - the same copy happens whether you're connected directly or networked).

For example, on the ReadyNAS Pro I get the same copy speed as I get to a direct FireWire drive. The ReadyNAS NV is a bit slower than that, and the Time Capsule or Airport-attached disks are very slow (first copy)...

A PowerBook G3 is kind of a slow Mac to start with, with slow I/O and slow networking. Perhaps copy to a directly connected drive instead?

[snpower]

To add insult to injury my Powerbook locked up about 30 mb's short of completion.

I connected my MBP directly to the 1TB drive via firewire and backed up 100 gigs in about 45 mins.

[Harold]

Subsequent copies should be faster, and faster devices copy faster (we're not CPU bound, and we copy as quickly as the system lets us in your situation - the same copy happens whether you're connected directly or networked).

For example, on the ReadyNAS Pro I get the same copy speed as I get to a direct FireWire drive. The ReadyNAS NV is a bit slower than that, and the Time Capsule or Airport-attached disks are very slow (first copy)...

A PowerBook G3 is kind of a slow Mac to start with, with slow I/O and slow networking. Perhaps copy to a directly connected drive instead?

Thanks for the info., Dave. I tried connecting via USB to my external drive but it's currently formatted as NTFS so I went with copying to my PC first. (The PowerBook G3 is also only equipped with USB 1.x so I'm probalby going to want to dig up a USB pcmcia card or something.)

[dnanian]

The G3 doesn't have FireWire?

[rlesperance]

For example, on the ReadyNAS Pro I get the same copy speed as I get to a direct FireWire drive.

Are you comparing it with FW400 or FW800 ? Could I expect a speed equivalent to ReadyNAS Pro with any NAS Gigabit ethernet drive ?

[dnanian]

Definitely not. Most "consumer" NASen are much slower.

[rlesperance]

If most are not fast, which are the faster and how much faster ?

I want a NAS drive, because I want a backup drive that is always connected and that is not in the same room as the computer in case of theft or damage directly to the computer. With «gigabit ethernet», a NAS drive can be located very far from the computer and have faster connection speed.

My backup strategy is completed by a small portable external 500GB FW800 drive.

[dnanian]

I haven't tested all of them, Robert. The ReadyNAS Pro is quite fast, and I get excellent throughput (especially to iSCSI). I've never found a low-cost 'consumer' NAS that had even remotely similar throughput.

[rlesperance]

The ReadyNAS Pro is an expensive machine. I would probably live something slower. Where can I get updated information on reliable and connection speed for consumer NAS drive ?

[dnanian]

I don't know, sorry - no doubt there are a number of review sites that specialize in reviewing NAS units... the ReadyNAS NVX is a recent Intel-based NAS that is likely to be quite fast, too.

[rlesperance]

Thanks ...

[rlesperance]

Do you know about the Drobo NAS ?

[dnanian]

The DroboShare is not particularly fast. I have not tested the Drobo PRO.