Re: slow backup using lvm snapshots and tar

[Berni Elbourn <berni@elbournb.fsnet.co.uk>]

Israel Garcia wrote:
> Hi list:
>
> I'm using this command to create s snapshot of every LV's server,
> mount the LV, make a TGZ to a shared folder (NFS),  then umount LV
> image and remove snapshot LV. The problem is tar backup is extremely
> slow (it takes 3 hours to make backup of all servers).
>
> This is the command I'm using:
>
> for vps in `cat vps`; do lvcreate -L10G -s -n "$vps"snapshot
> /dev/vg0/"$vps".domain-disk && mount /dev/vg0/"$vps"snapshot
> /mnt/vmbackup && cd /mnt/vmbackup && nice -n 19 tar pczf
> /shared/lvbackups/"$vps"_`date +%F` . && cd ; umount /mnt/vmbackup &&
> lvremove -f /dev/vg0/"$vps"snapshot;done
>
> My question is:
> How can I make TAR backup faster? is it possible? Is there other
> command faster than TGZ in this case?
>
> thanks in advance.

Great fun this kind of thing...

Look at the nfs export - fiddle with the r/wsize parameters:

http://www.linuxselfhelp.com/HOWTO/NFS-HOWTO/performance.html

Enough space. Produce the tar file locally then copy to the remote 
server....if security permits with ftp.

Lots of space...Do the backups in parallel. bash wait is your friend:

http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/library/linuxguides/abs-guide/x5514.html

BTW: The p in pczf is an option for restore.

Enjoy...