Backup speed with USB 3?

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dwnelson
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Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by dwnelson » Fri Feb 06, 2015 8:05 am

My daily USB backups of the Open Dental database and the Images folder have been taking a long time recently (almost 10 minutes).

I have been using USB 2 devices, so I recently got a fast USB 3 flash drive and have used it on a new computer (with SSD and USB 3), and the backups have not been any faster. The database and images are on the computer, they are not going through a network, so there is no network bottleneck.

The Images folder is now 1.2GB. That is the bottleneck, obviously.

The drive has been rated to write at 150 MB/second. It is encrypted with BitLocker using Windows 7 Ultimate. The computer has an Intel Dual Core 3.0 GHz Haswell processors and 16GB RAM.

Aside from checking the "Exclude image folder in backup or restore" box, is there anything I can do to improve backup speed? Where is the bottleneck?

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dgraffeo
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by dgraffeo » Fri Feb 06, 2015 9:18 am

Hey there, there might be a couple things I can think of -
Do you have a USB 3.0 port you're plugging the USB into? USB 3.0 devices can go into USB 2.0 ports but wouldn't get as much of the speed benefit if that's where they are.
If you're using a cable is it a 3.0 cable? Same thing as with the port situation.
Finally, the encryption may be throwing a wrench into the works. Most of the time you would think it'd simply copy/paste the encrypted files into the drive but often the computer is unencrypting the data, transferring, then re-encrypting behind the scenes which would be a huge bottleneck. I'm not sure how to get around this one.
"To understand what recursion is, you must first understand recursion."

David Graffeo
Open Dental Software
http://www.opendental.com

KevinRossen
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by KevinRossen » Fri Feb 06, 2015 11:08 am

dgraffeo wrote:Hey there, there might be a couple things I can think of -
Do you have a USB 3.0 port you're plugging the USB into? USB 3.0 devices can go into USB 2.0 ports but wouldn't get as much of the speed benefit if that's where they are.
This is my guess. If you're just plugging a USB 3.0 drive into a USB 2.0 port you won't see any speed increase. I had to add a USB 3.0 card to our server to get the boost in speed.
Kevin Rossen
Office Manager, Rossen Dental
Founder, DivergentDental.com
Image

dwnelson
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by dwnelson » Fri Feb 06, 2015 4:54 pm

Yes, it is a USB 3 port. It is a direct connection to the port, there is no USB 2 extension cable or anything.

teethdood
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by teethdood » Fri Feb 06, 2015 6:20 pm

USB 3.0 ports are blue
Sometimes switching ports help too. Have you tried a different port? Try the ports in the back of the computer as a test. I know you're not going to get back there and do it every day but just do it as a test. If the ports in the back work (I get ~170MB/s) then get a USB3.0 extension cable and run it to the front.
Philip H. Doan, DDS
http://www.kaweahdental.com/

dwnelson
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by dwnelson » Mon Feb 09, 2015 4:12 pm

I did test all ports and they are all USB 3 ports.

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drtech
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by drtech » Tue Feb 10, 2015 7:31 am

Have you tried to copy directly with windows explorer a large file (like a 2GB movie) to make sure you can copy at 30-100mb/sec there (which would indicate USB3 depending on your flash drive speed.)
David Fuchs
Dentist - Springfield, MO
Smile Dental http://www.887-smile.com

dwnelson
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by dwnelson » Thu Feb 26, 2015 4:12 pm

Copying the files over my wired Ethernet network averages about 3.5 MB per second.

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Justin Shafer
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by Justin Shafer » Tue Mar 03, 2015 12:19 am

It could be a limitation of the write speed with your flash drive's memory chips. Compare the write speed in a different pc with usb 3.

I use hdparm with linux, though the test will be slightly different in Windows. Not a bad idea to test on both OS's...

Then try other usb 3 devices.. like a solid state drive hooked to a sata to usb 3.0 converter... (FAST)

vsuite
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by vsuite » Thu Apr 16, 2015 8:54 pm

Sounds as though you are backing up the files over Ethernet from a computer that is not the server. That should possibly be slow, depending on several things?

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drtech
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by drtech » Tue Apr 28, 2015 7:56 am

If by copying files over your network you mean directly to your hard drive, then either your server is really slow, or most likely, you are on a slow Ethernet network. You could fix that bottleneck problem by upgrading to a gigabit switch (if you have Cat5e or higher cables) and you should increase your speed at least 10x or more. (If you have gigabit Ethernet cards in your computers also.)
David Fuchs
Dentist - Springfield, MO
Smile Dental http://www.887-smile.com

agetreu
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Re: Backup speed with USB 3?

Post by agetreu » Mon May 18, 2015 6:12 am

i think your bottleneck has to do with file size. USB flash, like other storage devices bottlenecks with lots of small files. large files tend to go at the rated speeds of the device.
example:
take 10,000 files totaling 2GBs. transfer time might be 20+ minutes.
take 1 file totaling 2 GBs, transfer time may be 1-2 minutes.
thats why ZIP files with 1000's of files in the archive transfer quickly. but the individual files take forever.
as your backup increases in the number of files. it will take longer and longer. other methods, such as versioning or tracking changes work faster once the initial backup is completed.

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