How to improve tape storage performance

Tape storage is currently the most affordable, cost-effective storage medium-more backup data, no disk cache. Here are 5 points to improve the performance of tape storage.

Understanding Your tape drive

The most important aspect of achieving good tape storage performance is understanding the tape storage drives that you use during the backup process. Most modern tape drives are part of a streaming tape drive, meaning they are used to transmit data at a specific rate, so in order for the tape storage drive to work correctly, you must understand its rate and keep its flow state during backup and recovery.

So, the first thing we need to do is understand all the tape storage drives that are in use. The first issue you need to know is the maximum raw (uncompressed) transfer rate for the tape drive. For example, a LTO-4 tape storage drive has a maximum original (uncompressed) transfer rate of 120MB per second. When you know this value, you must determine how low the drive is. This may require some research, but these numbers are definitely recorded in the document. If the data is not in the document, you need to contact the vendor of the tape drive.

For example The minimum transfer rate of the LTO-4 is about 23MBps to 25MBps. That is, the write rate of the LTO-4 cannot be less than 23MBps to 25MBps. If its actual write rate appears to be below this number, the drive is actually writing data in a short burst of 23MBps to 25MBps, and then again after a short pause to the 23M A short burst of bps to 25MBps writes data. You should also be aware of any step rate between the maximum and minimum rates, which typically has two to three intermediate speeds between the minimum and maximum speeds on a LTO-4 tape storage drive. Also, understanding this requires some research, and the answer is probably in the documentation. Once you understand these numbers, you should try to achieve the maximum transfer rate, and any operation below the minimum transfer rate will only cause you trouble.

Second, understand the data transmission rate and compression rate

On the source issue, you need to know two things: data transfer rate and compression rate. You need to know the data transfer rates for different servers. Higher-end servers with higher-end storage devices tend to supply data faster than lower-end servers. When you design your own backup architecture, you need to understand these different data transfer rates. You can only determine this data by passing a test. For example, if you know that a particular customer's database can only transmit data at a rate of 10MBps to 20MBps, then connecting it to a fibre channel cannot improve the speed of the backup because its speed is limited from the start.

The next issue you need to know is the rate at which data is compressed. Some data compression has a higher compression rate than other data, and different companies have varying data compression rates. You need to identify the compression capabilities of the data in your environment. This is because you must multiply the compression rate by the minimum and maximum transfer rate mentioned above to derive the new minimum and maximum transfer rate. For example, if your environment has a compression rate of 1.5:1, your Mbps tape drive becomes a 180 Mbps tape storage drive. The way to determine the compression rate is to view the data that was loaded before the tape physical endpoint (PEOT) label and the software hint tape was full. If you can consistently write 1200 GB of data in a nominal GB of tape, the compression rate is 1.5:1, and you can multiply the original throughput by that number.

Third, understand your data path

When you know where and where the data comes from, you also need to understand the route it takes to complete the process. Does the data pass through Ethernet? is the network gigabit, gigabit or MB? If your client is able to transmit data in hundreds of Mbps and is trying to send its data over a MB network, you will not get the speed you need. However, if you want to connect to Fibre Channel and migrate to a LAN-free backup process, such clients are ideal.

Iv. Understanding Your backup applications

It is natural to understand this part, but backup applications can be very complex in terms of performance tuning. Understanding the various aspects of the backup product allows you to "do whatever you want" in the actual work. For example, if you are using IBM Tivoli Storage Manager and aren't familiar with arranging groups, you should be aware of this. Similarly, if you are using Symantec NetBackup, EMC Networker and CommVault, and their reuse features, you should also do your homework properly. You can join a mailing list, a forum, or a newsgroup, and see how other people make the application perform better. You can also search the "performance" keyword on the backupcentral.com forum to find out what other users have asked and answered about the topic.

Learn about your disk sales

If you do not send backup data to disk first, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the tape storage drive working properly. If you have recently purchased a tape storage drive and have not purchased a disk with you, it is a good idea to cancel the order and book some disks. Whether you believe it or not, moving the data two times (that is, back to disk and then copied to tape) is much faster than moving alone once.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)