Backup AwarenessIf anybody out there is running NetWare 6.5 and was disappointed with the slow performance of external USB drives, I have good news.
Service Pack 8, that has just recently come out of public beta, fixes the performance problem.
NetWare 6.5 is also known as Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (the name change was a result of their new distribution of OpenSUSE server software.)
Performance numbers:
I am using Symantec Backup Exec 9.2 with a Dell Poweredge 400sc server and Dell external RD1000 on a USB2.0 hub. Our backups used to take nearly 12 hours and the average throughput was 75MB/Min.
After the installation of SP8 (beta), we are now getting backup speeds of 356MB/Min and the verify is an astonishing 826.7MB/Min. Now the backup/verify only takes a few hours.
The only difficulty I had was getting the Dell system to use the EHCI driver. NetWare and Dell apparently weren't talking properly at bootup and NetWare kept defaulting to the slower UHCI driver. To overcome this I added the EHCI driver to the Startup.ncf file and then the system correctly loaded this driver for my external drive.
And so far, everything else about the upgrade has been fine. No problems to report here.
The Support Pack 8 update is hard to find. Here's a handy link to take you to the right page:
