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CrashPlan - Why So ---S---L---O---W---

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TaliesinSoft

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Jul 27, 2012, 12:17:13 PM7/27/12
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I recently installed CrashPlan and configured it so that only the files
belonging to one of my user accounts would be backed up. The total
amount of data in that file is 97.2GB. I have purchased the unllimited
data plan and keep CrashPlan always running but hidden. CrashPlan has
now been running three full days and CrashPlan informs me that it will
be another 18 days until the backup is complete. I'm boggled
considering that SuperDuper! will complete a full backkup of my full
system, 154.77GB in just a few hours. Is there anything I can do to
speed up CrashPlan or is this just the way it is?

--
James Leo Ryan - Austin, Texas

Bread

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Jul 27, 2012, 12:55:37 PM7/27/12
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Do you have Crashplan backing you up to a local drive or to their servers?

I use it both to a local drive and to a local drive on another of my
own machines. Backup to the local drive is reasonably fast. Backup to
the drive hanging off another machine is pretty slow, though it helps
if I'm on the same local network. Backing up to a drive hanging off
one of my machines out across the internet -- is hideously slow. For
the offsite backups, I seeded them by doing the backup to a local drive
and then taking the drive to the remote machine and plugging it in
directly.

Nevertheless, my experience is that even a local CrashPlan backup is
substantially slower than either TimeMachine or SuperDuper!

Oh, and I did try having Crashplan back up to a locally networked drive
(ie. the drive was plugged into my airport extreme and mounted over the
local network) - and it basically made the computer unusably slow. I
mean, so slow you'd click the mouse, and five minutes later, the click
would register. Not sure exactly what caused it to be so hideous like
that, but the upshot is that it's really only useful when the drive is
plugged into the computer actually running Crashplan. I'd been very
happy having TimeMachine go to an airport extreme-mounted drive and had
similar hopes for CP, but ultimately I relented and got a Drobo and
plugged it directly into the desktop machine.

None of my backups goes to Crashplan's servers. They all go to my own
machines - local drives attached to desktops on two sites.

It's not my primary backup by any stretch. But it is by far the
easiest way to keep an up-to-date offsite copy.

TaliesinSoft

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Jul 27, 2012, 1:48:19 PM7/27/12
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On 2012-07-27 16:55:37 +0000, Bread said:

[In response to my opening posting in this thread]

> Do you have Crashplan backing you up to a local drive or to their servers?

My CrashPlan backup is to their servers. I have purchased the unlimited plan.

Bread

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Jul 27, 2012, 2:06:33 PM7/27/12
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On 2012-07-27 17:48:19 +0000, TaliesinSoft said:

> On 2012-07-27 16:55:37 +0000, Bread said:
>
> [In response to my opening posting in this thread]
>
>> Do you have Crashplan backing you up to a local drive or to their servers?
>
> My CrashPlan backup is to their servers. I have purchased the unlimited plan.

http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php/feature/seed_service

Just as I "seeded" my remote copies by physically hauling a hard drive
from one location to another, Crashplan supports sending *them* a
drive. Per that support article, backing up 100GB "could take weeks".
Not terribly surprising.


TaliesinSoft

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Jul 27, 2012, 3:38:11 PM7/27/12
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Thanks for the information! However I couldn't find where I go to order
the seeding backup drive.

Wayne C. Morris

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Jul 27, 2012, 9:08:10 PM7/27/12
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In article <a7g913...@mid.individual.net>,
Go to their online store (http://www.crashplan.com/consumer/store.vtl). It's
below all the backup plans and gift subscriptions. It's labelled "Back it up...
Fast".

A message there says "Due to high demand, turnaround for the seed service is
5-10 days", so it may only save you 8 days of upload time.

Bob Harris

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Jul 27, 2012, 9:33:42 PM7/27/12
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In article <a7ft89...@mid.individual.net>,
18 days plus the 3 you have already been running for 97.2GB would
imply that you are getting about 0.5megabits/second upload speed.

How fast is your ISP uplink speed? NOTE: Most home broadband
packages advertise how fast they download data, but usually
mention the uplink speed in the fine print. And most home
broadband packages have a much slower uplink speed than what the
home owner is getting as a download speed.

You are almost never going to get local attached disk speed from a
networked backup, especially one that is going across the internet
via your ISP.

TaliesinSoft

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Jul 28, 2012, 12:48:51 AM7/28/12
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On 2012-07-28 01:08:10 +0000, Wayne C. Morris said:

[in response to my asking where one signs up for the CrashPlan seediing
service]

> Go to their online store (http://www.crashplan.com/consumer/store.vtl). It's
> below all the backup plans and gift subscriptions. It's labelled "Back
> it up...
> Fast".
>
> A message there says "Due to high demand, turnaround for the seed service is
> 5-10 days", so it may only save you 8 days of upload time.

So I'm to pay an additional $125 over and above my $50 or so annual
subscription to speed up my CrashPlan upload by perhaps two weeks,
maybe not even that. As things now stand I'm quite disappointed in
CrashPlan and feel that the limitations as to the upload speed were not
well emphasized. Given that I am already running two SuperDuper! smart
backups each evening I think I can ride out the time.
Message has been deleted

TaliesinSoft

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Jul 29, 2012, 12:23:31 AM7/29/12
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On 2012-07-28 01:33:42 +0000, Bob Harris said:

> In article <a7ft89...@mid.individual.net>,
> TaliesinSoft <talies...@me.com> wrote:
>
>> I recently installed CrashPlan and configured it so that only the files
>> belonging to one of my user accounts would be backed up. The total
>> amount of data in that file is 97.2GB. I have purchased the unllimited
>> data plan and keep CrashPlan always running but hidden. CrashPlan has
>> now been running three full days and CrashPlan informs me that it will
>> be another 18 days until the backup is complete. I'm boggled
>> considering that SuperDuper! will complete a full backkup of my full
>> system, 154.77GB in just a few hours. Is there anything I can do to
>> speed up CrashPlan or is this just the way it is?
>
> 18 days plus the 3 you have already been running for 97.2GB would
> imply that you are getting about 0.5megabits/second upload speed.
>
> How fast is your ISP uplink speed? NOTE: Most home broadband
> packages advertise how fast they download data, but usually
> mention the uplink speed in the fine print. And most home
> broadband packages have a much slower uplink speed than what the
> home owner is getting as a download speed.

I appreciate your taking the time to comment!

According to Speedtest my upload speed is 1.79 Mbps and my download
speed is 7.42 Mbps.

> You are almost never going to get local attached disk speed from a
> networked backup, especially one that is going across the internet
> via your ISP.


Bob Harris

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Jul 30, 2012, 8:35:09 PM7/30/12
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In article <a7js63...@mid.individual.net>,
If you could saturate your uplink 24/7 then it would take at least
5 to 6 days. HOWEVER, there is overhead, and we will assume you
actually use your broadband for something besides CrashPlan backup.

I would guess you would be more likely to get maybe 1Mbps
resulting about 10 days.

Only getting .5Mbps implies that either your CrashPlan is
configured to limit its CPU and/or Bandwidth usage, or there are
bottlenecks at the CrashPlan servers.

My CrashPlan settings are:

o User must be away and the system not active for 15 minutes
o When user is away, use up to 80% of CPU
o When user is present, use up to 20% of CPU - this can limit
upload activity when I'm actually using my Mac.
o Limit Sending rate when away to 300kbps (.3Mbps)
o Limit Sending rate when present to 200kbps (.2Mbps)

So what are your CrashPlan settings, especially with respect to
CrashPlan -> Settings -> Network?

TaliesinSoft

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Jul 30, 2012, 11:31:45 PM7/30/12
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On 2012-07-31 00:35:09 +0000, Bob Harris said:

[in response to my opening posting in this thread]

> If you could saturate your uplink 24/7 then it would take at least
> 5 to 6 days. HOWEVER, there is overhead, and we will assume you
> actually use your broadband for something besides CrashPlan backup.
>
> I would guess you would be more likely to get maybe 1Mbps
> resulting about 10 days.
>
> Only getting .5Mbps implies that either your CrashPlan is
> configured to limit its CPU and/or Bandwidth usage, or there are
> bottlenecks at the CrashPlan servers.
>
> My CrashPlan settings are:
>
> o User must be away and the system not active for 15 minutes
> o When user is away, use up to 80% of CPU
> o When user is present, use up to 20% of CPU - this can limit
> upload activity when I'm actually using my Mac.
> o Limit Sending rate when away to 300kbps (.3Mbps)
> o Limit Sending rate when present to 200kbps (.2Mbps)
>
> So what are your CrashPlan settings, especially with respect to
> CrashPlan -> Settings -> Network?

All of my CrashPlan settings are the default ones. I have changed my
backup to be my entire internal hard drive, increasing the amount to a
bit under 140 GB. At this time, after about four days of backing up I
am about at the halfway point. Interestingly the CrashPlan indicators
state that the backup should finish in about 1.2 days.

TaliesinSoft

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Aug 4, 2012, 11:51:14 PM8/4/12
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Well here things are, CrashPlan took 12 days to complete the initial
backup of about 884,000 files occupying aboout 139 GB. Now there is an
automatic backup every 15 minutes. What has me puzzled is that after
each of these automatic backups there is still some more to do, roughly
175 files occupying about 195 MB. I'm curious as to what these
remaining files are and why they haven't been backed up. That aside It
will be interesting to see how CrashPlan performs on a day to day basis.

Király

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Oct 24, 2012, 6:38:56 PM10/24/12
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TaliesinSoft <talies...@me.com> wrote:
> remaining files are and why they haven't been backed up. That aside It
> will be interesting to see how CrashPlan performs on a day to day basis.

Well, how's it been after two months, James?

--
K.

Te tetted e tettetett tettet? Te tettetett tettek tettetett tettese, te!

TaliesinSoft

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Oct 24, 2012, 11:14:17 PM10/24/12
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On 2012-10-24 22:38:56 +0000, Király said:

> TaliesinSoft <talies...@me.com> wrote:
>> remaining files are and why they haven't been backed up. That aside It
>> will be interesting to see how CrashPlan performs on a day to day basis.
>
> Well, how's it been after two months, James?

To be honest I haven't really paid much attention to CrashPlan other
than receiving reports that backups have been made. So now you've
encouraged me to really take a look!
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