How can I reduce the frequency of "synchronizing block information" phases in CrashPlan PROe?

Question

How can I reduce the frequency of "synchronizing block information" phases in CrashPlan PROe? It typically takes hours to complete, seems to occur every two days or so, and in the meantime files don't get backed up.

I use CrashPlan PROe 3.7.0 with Windows 7 SP1 x64 Ultimate.

Example:

To make matters worse, it is followed by a scan:

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My settings:

My advanced settings (grayed out, it seems that I cannot change them):

The following setting seems interesting but is grayed out as well:

Answer 1

Potential Considerations

• The Administration Guide Advanced Settings section indicates that if you set the Data de-duplication option value to Full this may help identify duplicate data to potentially help speed up the process.
• From this same admin guide, it's indicated that if you set the Compression option value to On, this too may be helpful in speeding up the process due to less bandwidth and less disk I/O being used.
• The Device Backup Reference guide indicates that in General you can set the Backup will run option to a value of Always so the backup always runs and it may only backup the changed data since the last backup, so consider testing and researching this further for performance benefits.
• The Using Backup Sets admin guide indicates you may want to have only one default Backup Sets and not more than one set to ensure that you are always backing up to the same destination as frequently as you have scheduled and configured per all your settings. Have a look at Specifying Version Settings for further clarification on applicable options as well.

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If You Cannot Change These Settings

If you determine that these options are grayed out, not changeable, or enforced at another level for the way this software is configured and setup in your environment you'll want to see where else these changes may need to be made to be effective on your client workstation.

According to the same admin guide in Advanced Settings, you will see there is an option with a little lock symbol indicating whether or not these settings are locked and preventing users from changing this value from their personal settings.

Consider the following options but don't limit to yourself them only:

• See if there's a setting in the client interface to unlock these so the changes can be changed
• Check a higher level in your configuration setup with this software to see if these settings can only be changed (unlocked) from a server policy or configuration file—check with your server or local PC admin if this is not you.
• If you have support with this software, reach out to [them] the vendor for support to assist in resolving the issue.

_{Advanced Settings}

_{Data de-duplication}

• _{Description: Controls data de-duplication rate.}
• _{Full - Every effort is made to identify duplicate data. While being 100% effective, it requires a great deal of CPU power. You're sacrificing CPU and speed to save bandwidth and disk at destination.}

_Compression

• _{Description: Controls how CrashPlan service compresses your backup. Compressed backups use less bandwidth and less disk space.
  Compression does consume some CPU, but not enough to offset overhead
  due to maxing out your bandwidth or I / O. Because you generally have more CPU available than bandwidth or disk I / O, we do not recommend
  turning off compression.}
• _{On - All files are compressed.}

_Lock

• _{Descripton: Locks this setting to prevent users from changing it in their personal settings.}

_source

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_General

_{Backup Sets}

• _{Description: Displays Backup Sets sheet in which you can create and configure backup sets.}

_{Backup will run}

• _{Description: Indicates whether backups are always running or running only at specific times.}

_source

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_{Backup Frequency}

_{CrashPlan backs up new changes to files as often as your Backup Frequency settings allow. CrashPlan watches the filesystem in real-time (unless that feature is turned off), and when a file changes it schedules the next backup of that file based on the frequency settings (i.e. if the backup frequency is set to the default 15 minutes, once a file changes CrashPlan will schedule a backup to happen 15 minutes later).}

_source

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References

• Advanced Settings - Device Backup Reference
• General - Device Backup Reference
• Using Backup Sets
• Specifying Version Settings
• Backup Settings Reference

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Guide Screen Shots