Backup speed question: hard drive vs. online

[MICROSOFT]

I've been using Microsoft's built in Backup program and its been pretty
smooth. I notice that for the initial backup it takes forever but
afterwards usually only a few minutes to update the backup. This is
wonderful. But I was wondering if I backup online, would it be this
fast? I thought its fast because it reads it fast being its connected to
the computer directly, not even with USB or Firewire. But what about if
it was hampered with internet speeds? I wonder how fast it would be?
Doesn't it have to compare both to see what needs backing up? And
wouldn't reading the online version be rather slow, even with fast cable
modem speeds?

 

[David C. Holley]

The performance will vary depending on your connection speed, internet
traffic and the site that you're backing up to. It may or may not be
comprable, furthermore, you may have instances where the difference isn't
noticable and times where you notice it.

 

[Bill in Co.]

I've been using Microsoft's built in Backup program and its been pretty
smooth. I notice that for the initial backup it takes forever but
afterwards usually only a few minutes to update the backup. This is
wonderful. But I was wondering if I backup online, would it be this
fast? I thought its fast because it reads it fast being its connected to
the computer directly, not even with USB or Firewire. But what about if
it was hampered with internet speeds? I wonder how fast it would be?
Doesn't it have to compare both to see what needs backing up? And
wouldn't reading the online version be rather slow, even with fast cable
modem speeds?

If you're MICROSOFT, surely you know the answer.

 

[alanglloyd]

A couple of years ago, HD transfer speeds were in the order of 50 - 75
megaBYTES/sec. With SATA (Serial ATA) it is 200 - 300 megaBytes/sec.

ADSL Internet access rates are 8 megaBITS/sec (== 1megaBYTES/sec)
download if you're lucky. 500 kiloBITS/sec upload. Maybe 10 megaBITS/
sec via cable.

So transfer to HD (even via USB) is much faster than internet (or
cloud storage).

When you first archive, ALL the data has to be backed up. After that
clever backup programs archive only CHANGED files. Hence the different
times to backup you have experienced.

Alan Lloyd

 

[VanguardLH]

I've been using Microsoft's built in Backup program and its been pretty
smooth. I notice that for the initial backup it takes forever but
afterwards usually only a few minutes to update the backup.

You don't know the difference between a full and incremental backup?

This is wonderful. But I was wondering if I backup online, would it be
this fast? I thought its fast because it reads it fast being its
connected to the computer directly, not even with USB or Firewire. But
what about if it was hampered with internet speeds? I wonder how fast it
would be? Doesn't it have to compare both to see what needs backing up?
And wouldn't reading the online version be rather slow, even with fast
cable modem speeds?

You could visit speedtest.net to find out your effective net speed (but
remember that the measurement is only valid at the time you made it and can
vary not only at different times but even using the same route but with
different hosts used for you to reach the target host and the load on those
hosts). Also remember that the measurement is in *bits* per seconds, not
bytes. So divide the measurement by 8 to convert from bits/second to bytes
per second. If your net speed was 16Mbits/second, that's 2MB/s. Now how
fast is the transfer rate for your local hard disk? Even an old ATA-4
(UDMA-33) IDE hard disk has 33MB/s (its burst speed measure, not its
sustained measure) would be 10 times, or more, faster to transfer bytes than
your net connection. Then add in that your net speed is NOT what you get
for transfer rate from a server host. To distribute its resources to
provide some responsiveness for the allowed multiple concurrent connections,
the server will throttle your connection to a slower speed.

 

[John John - MVP]

Unless you have a pricey business package or are on fiber optics upload
speed on the internet is nowheres near to download speed. Your high
speed connection might download at speed of 3 to 15 Mbps (3000 to 15000
kbps) but your upload speed is probably not much more than 256-512 kbps
(.25-.5 Mbps) Nothing is faster than your local hard drives, backing up
to online locations will most likely run at turtle speed. You can check
the speed of your internet connection at sites like this one:
http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

John

 

[HeyBub]

You could visit speedtest.net to find out your effective net speed
(but remember that the measurement is only valid at the time you made
it and can vary not only at different times but even using the same
route but with different hosts used for you to reach the target host
and the load on those hosts). Also remember that the measurement is
in *bits* per seconds, not bytes.

So divide the measurement by 8 to
convert from bits/second to bytes per second.

Probably more accurate to divide by ten to account for the protocol, parity,
and overhead bits added by the internet process.

 

[John]

You could visit speedtest.net to find out your effective net speed (but
remember that the measurement is only valid at the time you made it and
can
vary not only at different times but even using the same route but with
different hosts used for you to reach the target host and the load on
those
hosts). Also remember that the measurement is in *bits* per seconds, not
bytes. So divide the measurement by 8 to convert from bits/second to
bytes
per second. If your net speed was 16Mbits/second, that's 2MB/s. Now how
fast is the transfer rate for your local hard disk? Even an old ATA-4
(UDMA-33) IDE hard disk has 33MB/s (its burst speed measure, not its
sustained measure) would be 10 times, or more, faster to transfer bytes
than
your net connection. Then add in that your net speed is NOT what you get
for transfer rate from a server host. To distribute its resources to
provide some responsiveness for the allowed multiple concurrent
connections,
the server will throttle your connection to a slower speed.

Whooaaa... slow down cowboy. OP thinks internet connection is faster than
USB/firewire and you're telling him to count bits, bytes. Whatcha trying to
do? Oh wait... OP is Microsoft... perhaps he has gigabit connection
(up/down) to the internet.

 

[John]

I was wondering if I backup online, would it be this fast?

If you meant backup to a server on the internet, the answer depends on your
internet connection.

I thought its fast because it reads it fast being its connected to the
computer directly, not even with USB or Firewire.

Can you define "connected directly"? Your computer is connected to the
internet with either a network cable or wireless. Neither is faster than
USB/firewire speed.

But what about if it was hampered with internet speeds?

There you go. That's your bottleneck. (note: assuming that you have regular
internet speed that most internet subscribers have).

 

[David C. Holley]

Whooaaa... slow down cowboy. OP thinks internet connection is faster than
USB/firewire and you're telling him to count bits, bytes. Whatcha trying
to do? Oh wait... OP is Microsoft... perhaps he has gigabit connection
(up/down) to the internet.

He's Microsoft. The internet is in the back of his building in Redmond. We
poor saps have to connect to it.

 

[Gary Gary]

I was wondering if I backup online, would it be this fast?

If you meant backup to a server on the internet, the answer depends on
your internet connection.

I changed my screen name - Microsoft was kind of misleading.
First, it would be great if the original message was not mostly deleted.
Please people, don't trim so aggressively. We need context here.

I have a good cable connection, about 20mb down, 1mb up...most of the time.
My question was if I use MS Backup, I usually backup C: drive in about 5
minutes - incrementally of course. The initial backup took several
hours. So I was wondering if I attempted the same thing using a good
broadband connection, would it be dramatically longer?

Can you define "connected directly"? Your computer is connected to the
internet with either a network cable or wireless. Neither is faster than
USB/firewire speed.

I meant that in one instance its connected to the computer via a Sata
cable (eSata).
In the other its moving at about 1mb at best.
I was worried that the online backup could take many times longer than
eSata.

There you go. That's your bottleneck. (note: assuming that you have
regular internet speed that most internet subscribers have).

Yes I do. A good connection but no T10 connection of course. 20mb down,
1mb up at the best of times. If the eSata drive takes hours to initially
backup, it could takes a week or more to accomplish the same thing I would
think? Opinions?