[rescue] Re: intel vs. sun- for real

[s at avoidant.org]

Robert Novak wrote:

> I moved from sh+tar to Amanda, and found that using gzip on the server
> rather than the drive's compression got me as much as 52GB on a 20GB
> native tape (vs 35-40GB with the drive's compression, as I recall). The
> problem was that a full backup took 2-3 days and the nightly backup ran
> most of the day. This was on an Ultra 2 2300 with 512MB RAM that was doing
> nfs and nameservice at the same time.


We're currently doing tar over ssh, then gzip -9. The longest a single 
drive takes is around 6 hours, but there're over 4000 9 and 18G drives 
being backed up. The backup machines do NOTHING but this, but they're 
overloaded, even at P-III/750 and a Gig of RAM.

We're also working on a new, custom backup solution. We tried Amanda for 
a while, and gave it up. My cubemate and I are working on it.


 > It may be outside the scope of your arrangement, but you might
 > consider adding disks and eliminating the gzip/gunzip step. Reducing
 > the level of compression in the gzip step (gzip -1 instead of gzip 
-9) > might also save you some time and cpu power, and cost you a bit less
 > disk than eliminating the gzip altogether.


We keep adding disks. the network is growing steadilly. 53 new servers 
last month, and projected sales equivalent this month. More servers == 
more data to back up. And being peecees, more data == more load. Hence 
the search for a better solution.


---sambo
gratyeful for all the advice