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I have a fileserver with an 8TB volume for which MS DPM is doing a consistency check, its now running 16 hours and it is probably less than 30% through the volume. Why is that so slow? My MS SQL database backups (few hundred GBs) are done in a flash.

My DPM Server has 32GB memory and 2* Quadcore 2.4Ghz with a DAS attached that has 24 disks. My file server has 4GB memory and 2* Quadcore 2.4Ghz with 11 local disks each 1TB configures as RAID 5.

Both servers are running Windows 2008 R2 64Bit. Each server is connected via 1 GB LAN connection

System performance parameters show:

- DPM Server - CPU Load: < 0.1
- DPM Server - Disk read queue length: average < 1

- File Server - CPU load; < 0.1
- File server - Disk read queue length: average 2
- File server - Read bytes per second;  12 hour average=24MB/s, Max=450MB/s
- File server - Outgoing network traffic, average 10Mbps, max 60Mbps

All in all, the performance parameters look OK. I've ordered another 12GB memory for the file server, just in case but I am not sure whether that is addressing the root cause.

KKK
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    Why did you order more memory, when you haven't shown any evidence that RAM exhaustion is part of your issue? – Ryan Ries Jan 05 '13 at 02:13
  • The RAM upgrade costs only a few hundred dollars, not worth delaying. With a larger RAM I also hope an increased performance as the file server will be able to use a larger cache. – KKK Jan 05 '13 at 05:26

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Google FU, according to Microsoft's own engineers, this is a grin and bear it problem as reported jsut as recently as 3/12.

microsoft dpm check slow on large volumes http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/dpmfilebackup/thread/ff9b8081-68dd-4c0f-8fd4-7b23950c4f20

SmirksWhileWalkingWCabaretGirl
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  • Thanks for that link, I did google quite a bit, but didn't come across this article. Looking at it, it becomes very clear: MS DPM is not the way to go for file servers. I will spend a few more days looking into it, if no solution comes (consistency check completes in less than 4 hours on an 8TB volume) then I'll change the backup solution. – KKK Jan 05 '13 at 05:30
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    147 hours and 13 Million files later, still running. – KKK Jan 15 '13 at 08:38