LiveVault Information: Backup Bandwidth Usage

Backup Bandwidth Usage

You can monitor a computer's bandwidth usage to see how much bandwidth is being used over time to back up the computer's files.

Backup Bandwidth Usage Overview

Backup bandwidth usage is the amount of uplink (upstream) bandwidth that LiveVault uses to send the changed files from your computer to the backup server. Because LiveVault uses uplink bandwidth for backup, it typically does not disrupt your downstream bandwidth activities such as Web browsing.

For backup to succeed, your available uplink bandwidth must support the amount of data that is being backed up at the rate that data is changing. By default, LiveVault uses as much available network bandwidth as it needs to back up your data.

Bandwidth Usage Guidelines

Bandwidth usage varies with different types of data and data change rates.

Initial Backup

During a computer's initial backup, you will see higher bandwidth usage as the files are replicated in full for the first time.

Data transfer rates for the initial backup can be estimated at 2 gigabytes per day for each 256 Kbps (kilobits per second) of available bandwidth. However, the data transfer rate can improve by as much as 50% when a few large files are being protected, as opposed to an equivalent number amount of data consisting of many smaller files.

Typically, if only the minimum bandwidth is available for the given capacity, it could take nine days or more to complete the initial backup. It is recommended that you have enough bandwidth to complete the initial backup for any single large file in five days or fewer.

After initial backup completes, the bandwidth usage will decrease, as only changes are backed up.

Ongoing Protection

A good rule of thumb based upon a typical 5% daily change rate, is that LiveVault uses about 20 kilobits per second of your bandwidth for every gigabyte being backed up.

The following table lists common bandwidths and estimates of the amount of backed up data they can support, assuming a 5% average daily change rate. These are conservative estimates, based upon one server being backed up using a single connection; it is possible that multiple servers sharing that single connection can back up more data across that same connection.

Backing up highly dynamic servers such as mail servers and high-activity database servers can mean higher change rates that require additional bandwidth. Higher rates of change result in a linear increase in required bandwidth.

LiveVault does not measure bandwidth capacity. Many Internet connections are advertised by their downstream bandwidth. Ensure that you know your upstream bandwidth. It is also important, if you are using DSL, that you have SDSL (Synchronous Digital Subscriber Line) and not ADSL (Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line), which might not have enough uplink bandwidth.