deanihansen's questions

I have a dedicated HP backup server, connected to an HP autoloader(SAS). The server is connected through 1 Gbps (network interfaces bridged) IPv4 to the network, where I from BackupExec 2010 R3 connected to my virtual environment, runnning a fully patched ESXi 4.1, with a vCenter server, connected to a SAN (SAS).

When doing a backup job, backing the vmdk of any VM up, I get a peaking performance around 220mb/min. When backing up the dedicated server it self, I use the full speed which is +5000 mb/min. I know I can't transfer the data faster than 1 gbps, but still.. The 220mb/min is 0,003 gbps?! is it really suppose to be that low? What could I possible be doing wrong?

The transport mode is set to NDB since we are using the network, and GTR is disabled all the way through.

I've tried both over vcenter, and through the host it self - same performance. When copying a file from a VM to the dedicated host, I get full speed (1 Gbps).

I need to figure out if I can get this to work. I have a HP P2000 Storage system, connected to 2 x HP DL360 G7 through SAS. Then I got an HP Autoloader with connected through SAS too.

Will I, in ESXi 4.1, be able to mount both the tapedrive and tapelibary to a VM? If yes, How?

I've tried my self, and read a lot of VMware forum posts. It seems like SAS isn't supported in ESXi 4.0 and forward, and due to connectivity problems from supporting multiple LUNs (both autoloader drive LUN and libary LUN) over the same HBA. You can run a commando i cli that enables the LUN that otherwise appears and offline, but the connection it self is still very unstable, and the connection to the autoloader fails whenever you want to run an operation?

Any guidance available out there, on how I solve this?

I've done a temp. setup with an extra setup, running a 3rd server with a SAS HBA and the backup software. Gbit ethernet and the SAS HBA directly connected to the autoloader. The problem here is very poor performance (220 mb / minut), since the data has to go from the VMs, over ethernet, and onto the backup server in order to get to the autoloader through SAS. Can this setup somehow be altered in order to increase the performance?