I support a pretty simple Windows 2003 network with several servers on it and a Link Station 1000GL attached on the network with its own IP for backups that I inherited from the previous administrator. I've been doing comparisons between the Link Station and the Dell LTO3 tape drive that is directly attached to one of the servers. Using BackupExec 11d the LTO drive achieves between 450 - 600 MB/min during backups while the LinkStation reaches only 250-350 MB/min. During the verify the LTO drive sky rockets to over 1500MB/min while the Link Station drops to between 100 and 200 MB/min causing the verify job to take just as long as the backup..which is too long. I have updated the firmware of the Link Station to 1.15, installed the latest drivers for the server/NIC and made sure our small network (100mb) is very clean of traffic, so my questions are 3 fold:
1) In regards to the speed of the backup, am I expecting too much that the Link Station match the speed of the LTO drive accross the network?
2) I assume the backup verify on the LS1000GL is taking so long because it is verifying the data across the network as well. Short of stopping the verify, any tips or advice on speeding this up?
3) The LS1000GL has USB ports on it for attaching secondary drives, but could they be used to attach it directly to the server and thus eliminate the need to cross the network twice during backup and verify jobs.
Thanks for any help offered!!